The New York Times has checked into the ongoing “Watchmen” lawsuit between 20th Century Fox (the one time property owners) and Warner Bros. (the current ones) and the whole thing just got a lot uglier and hairier.
Both sides claim they have rights to the material, while Warner Bros. claim that Fox let the project go in “turnaround,” and its rightfully theirs.
Warner said Fox “sat silently” as one of the producers of “Watchmen,” Lawrence Gordon, took the project “to studio after studio with Fox’s express knowledge.”
Fox isn’t going down without a fight and accoring to a report submitted to a Federal court in Los Angeles, 2oth Century Fox will seek an injunction blocking Warner’s planned release of the film next March.
From an outside perspective though, and to be totally fair, this seems like total horseshit last minute move by Fox and some sour grapes for a letting a project go. They’re more than fully aware about Watchmen as it was once set up at Universal under the aegis of Darren Aronofsky (who left it for “The Fountain”) and then Paramount under the guide of Paul Greengrass (he eventually moved on to do “United 93”) well before it got to Warners.
Either way, it’s getting ugly and it seems both Universal and Paramount are going to be roped into this lawsuit as well to at least testify on the matter.
What’s worse for the film is that both proposed trial start dates are well after the now-scheduled March 2009 release date of “Watchmen.”
“The report also outlined conflicting requests for a trial date: as early as next June, if Fox has its way, or April, if Warner prevails.
Does this mean, Warner hopes to be done with the trial by the end of the Spring for a summer release, thus pushing the date back a few months? It’s a little too early to tell, but we’re sure Warner and or director Zack Snyder will comment on the matter soon.