Warner Brothers would rather have federal Judge Gary A. Feess’ decision on whether or not to issue an injuction to delay the release of “Watchmen” sooner rather than later according to the Hollywood Reporter. The studio is pushing to have the ruling handed down as early as next Monday instead of waiting for the trial date on January 20th.
At stake is Warner Brother’s ability to release the film on its scheduled release date of March 6, 2009.  Warners argues that “time is critical” to knowing if the film will be released on that date because the studio plans to commit millions of dollar to publicity for the film.
The fight over an injuction comes from Feess’ decision in December that rival studio 20th Century Fox has a right to distribute the adapation of the popular graphic novel. Feess found that producer Lawrence Gordon failed to acquire Fox’s entire interest in “Watchmen,” thereby leaving Fox with rights under a 1994 turnaround agreement.
Fox and Warner Brothers are now battling over whether that decision can result in the film’s delay or if the two parties should go to trail over monetary damages.
A status conference in the case is scheduled for Friday morning.Â
Why not just give Fox a cut of the ticket sales and be done with it? That way, the movie gets released on time, Fox gets a cut of the (sure to be) profits, and WB isn’t out a Brinks truckload of money with a complete film sitting on a shelf. It’s a win all the way around, is it that difficult to see? OY!
We’ve bad experience of Fox in the UK under Murdoch’s Sky channels. They recently had a spat with a cable company over charges for their channels, demanding more when the cable company was taken over by a rival who had caused Murdoch hassle in the past. Everyone expected a last min financial agreement but none was sought with the cable company refusing to bow to Sky’s pressure. (Result was that all cable viewers lost what would be considered the better US imports).
I suspect (sadly) that Fox will demand an amount that is clearly OTT on the grounds they can’t see they have much to lose. (They are going to get some money at some point in their view, and they probably feel they should go for as much as possible).
In the UK boycotting Sky/Fox is possible, but you end up without so many of the better shows because of the financial power they have in outbidding everyone else.
I’m expecting this to go to court and take quite some time! (Obviously I’ll be delighted if it gets sorted).