I AM REPOSTING THIS OLDER POST, WITH AN UPDATE. I'VE RECIEVED A FEW COMMENTS ON WHAT THE CASE IS ABOUT, SO I FIGURE, WHY NOT GO THROUGH IT'S HISTORY...
The wheels for a Watchmen adaptation began in August of 1986, when Lawrence Gordon, a Fox Studios executive, purchased the rights to the comic and it's adaptation, for the studio. Fox first asked Alan Moore, the comic's author, to pen the screenplay, but when he declined, they went another way, with Sam Hamm, writer of the Tim Burton Batman films, who brought the first draft into the studio in September of 1988. Now, Terry Gilliam was attached to direct, but when they could only raise $25 million for the budget, roughly a fourth of the needed amount, he abandoned the project, which would not be restarted until 2001. In 2001, they got David Hayter, writer of X Men and X2 (also the voice of Solid Snake in Metal Gear Solid, fyi), to write and direct it. He left in 2002, and in 2004, Darren Aronofsky was set to helm it, with Simon Pegg as Rorschach, but this also was put to an end when Aronofsky left to make the great film, The Fountain (great decision by Darren, I may add).
Fast forward to Feburary 8th, 2008, as today's version of Watchmen, helmed by the solid director, Zack Snyder and starring Jackie Earl Haley, Patrick Wilson, and Billy Crudup, is just fiinshing up filming. On this date, Fox officially filed a suit stating that the finishing and release of this version of The Watchmen should be put to bed. Remember Lawrence Gordon? Well, it has been said, and is the basis of the lawsuit, that Gordon sold the rights to The Watchmen to WB, but neglected to pay out Fox. Gordon had left the studio as a producer, and shopped the rights around, without giving any sort of buy out to Fox. So, in August of this year, a judge denied an injunction by WB to get the charges thrown out, and now it is slated that this case will see the court on Janurary 6th, two months before the intended release of the film. The studios are trying to get this date moved up even further, so it looks as though they don't want to delay it. However, the date is in jeopardy, if WB and Fox don't settle out of court.
UPDATE: The court date has been pushed back to January 20th, and no deal has yet been made.
Honestly, to me, I blame both parties. On an artistic level, it bugs me that a studio that is pumping out Tooth Fairy, Street Fighter, and Dragonball (Fox) would be the ones to stall this film that look to be absolutely brilliant, but if WB had done what they should have, and bought out Fox, then we wouldn't be talking about this right now. So I say set up a Fight Club (like the reference in the title of the note) and let them fight it out. This is really mainly WB's fault, so while I want to see this get released in March (the month of my birthday for gods sake) Fox is doing what they have to, and needed to do. What are your thoughts?
I hope this could be of some help to all of you who aren't sure what this whole court case is about.
Come back later for more news and notes!
Go see something good!
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