Open letter from Watchmen producer

[Mistwell]

According to Fox and the Judge, WB was repeatedly advised of Fox's interests...and proceeded anyway. AT the least, WB failed to exercise due dilligence.



The judge is pretty clear- he not only ruled in Fox's favor, he felt that WB's arguments in court were self-serving revisionism at odds with long-settled California law.

The only thing that is unclear in the ruling is whether Judge Feess has anything else to add to the summary judgement besides details of legal precedents when he releases his supplementary order on Jan 20.

OH, now I know where the confusion is coming from, and it's over the title "turnaround notice". That's the name of a document, not a description of actual notice. As far as I know, the judge did not hold that WB ever got actual notice from FOX.

Here are the details on that document:

n 1994, Fox negotiated a “Settlement and Release” agreement with Gordon which contemplated that the Watchmen project would be put in “perpetual turnaround” to Lawrence Gordon Productions, Inc. The Turnaround Notice gave Lawrence Gordon Productions the perpetual right to acquire all of the right, title and interest of Fox pursuant to the terms and conditions provided in the notice. The Turnaround Notice then described the formula for determining the buy-out price in the event that Gordon elected to acquire Fox’s interest. According to the court, this document suggests that Gordon acquired an option to acquire Fox’s interest in Watchmen for a price. The Notice also provided that the agreement was personal to Gordon and that, prior to payment, he could not assign rights or authorize any person to take any action with respect to the project.

Gordan in that paragraph is not a WB exec. Gordon is the Golar company guy who bought some of the rights from Fox (and, as it turns out, also held an option on the rest of the rights that he did not exercise). However, the judge did not find that WB had actual notice of Fox's rights and WB just ignored it (only that they should have known). The judge would have to conduct a trial to find out if they had actual notice.

Here is how I believe it happened: The execs at WB thought Gordan owned all the rights, and bought everything Gordon owned.. They were mistaken on Gordon owning all the rights. And there are some good reasons and some bad reasons for that mistake. Fox however did not let them know either. In fact, Fox Execs were not even certain at the time that they retained those rights.

Later, in separate negotiations over an entirely different matter (the Batman TV show), during the Watchmen production, Fox set to work on trying to find leverage for the negotiation, and figured out they probably still had some rights to Watchmen.

Is this a screw-up on WB's part? Yes. But did WB actually think Fox owned the rights still? No, I think the WB execs thought they owned the rights properly, and were simply mistaken. Did Fox actually make the claim that they still owned the rights, before the movie went into actual production with WB? From what I know, no.

 

[Vocenoctum]

Except that is not how it happened as far as I know. There was no notification I am aware of. WB thought they had done everything necessary to acquire the rights, and they did acquire many of the rights. The were wrong however concerning one portion of the rights, but it is not like Fox was notifying them "you know we still own this" all along. They got notice, from what I know, only after they were already in production.

From the court document;
"In particular, Warner Brothers
exercised its option to acquire Gordon’s rights after being placed on notice of Fox’s
claim and having received the documentation upon which this Court bases its ruling."

So, yeah, the timing seems to be that Fox said "no" and WB continued anyway.

No they could not. If asked, Fox already said they would have said no. Indeed, it's one of the basic claims they made in their injunction request that it was irreparable damage that someone else made it, as they did not want anyone to make it at any price...though apparently it was not so strong a belief that they ever bothered to contact WB about it until it was already made.

Okay, I was wrong then (about them negotiating).

It would seem at that point, WB should have exercised the quit-claim stuff, and sued when the price was out of reason.

No, he did not, as far as I can tell. The judge did not find they were given notice from what have read. If you have a link to an article that says WB got earlier notice from Fox and just ignored it, I'd like to read it.

Just the quote above from the order from:
http://bradfox.com/downloadables/watchmen_dec2408_order.pdf

 

[Mistwell]

From the court document;
"In particular, Warner Brothers exercised its option to acquire Gordon’s rights after being placed on notice of Fox’s claim and having received the documentation upon which this Court bases its ruling."

The "placed on notice" is the document itself I think. The judge is not referring to any other kind of notice that I am aware of. It's not actual notice, from what I know, it's just constructive notice (had they read everything and insisted on seeing the exercised option, like they should have, they would have known). Gordon was claiming to WB at the time that he owned all the rights I think, and WB chose to simply believe that.

So, yeah, the timing seems to be that Fox said "no" and WB continued anyway.

I really do not think that is what happened. The judge never details any such conversation. I think he is referring to the document itself.

Okay, I was wrong then (about them negotiating).

It would seem at that point, WB should have exercised the quit-claim stuff, and sued when the price was out of reason.

They could not. The quit-claim option was in Gordan's name, personally. And the option could not be transferred. Gordan needed to exercise it, and did not, but I think he was representing to WB that he owned all the rights.

 

[Silver Moon]

Given the fact that they are planning a late winter/early spring release it shouldn't actually hurt them that much if there is any sort of short delay. It might even help them given the added publicity.

 

[RangerWickett]

Well I wonder if something's been worked out, because I saw an ad for Watchmen on FOX during 24.

 

[Felon]

IGN: Watchmen Case Settled

January 15, 2009 - Our long national nightmare is over.

Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox have settled their legal dispute over the long-awaited Watchmen movie. The movie will be released as planned March 6.

Warners still gets to distribute Watchmen, while Fox will reportedly receive an upfront multi-million dollar payment (Variety pegs the confidential amount as between $5-10 million) to cover its legal fees and development fees.

Fox will not have its logo on the film when it's released, but it will receive a cut of its box office gross. The studio will also receive gross participation points in any potential sequels or spin-offs.

The studios said in a joint statement, "Warner Bros acknowledges that Fox acted in good faith in bringing its claims, which were asserted prior to the start of principal photography. Fox acknowledges that Warner Bros. acted in good faith in defending against those claims Warner Bros. and Fox, like all Watchmen fans, look forward with great anticipation to this film's March 6 release in theatres."

Fox sued Warners last spring over the rights to the film, and a federal judge ruled in December that Fox actually did own the copyright to Watchmen.

It's over. Like V-Day and the end of the Iranian Hostage Crisis the conflict that so heavily defined and divided a generation has ended at long, long last. We can now bury our dead and dance in the street. In years to come, people will ask "where were you when they announced the end of the Watchmen lawsuit", and we'll all have a story to tell.

Go. Be with your loved ones.

 

[Vocenoctum]

IGN: Watchmen Case Settled



It's over. Like V-Day and the end of the Iranian Hostage Crisis the conflict that so heavily defined and divided a generation has ended at long, long last. We can now bury our dead and dance in the street. In years to come, people will ask "where were you when they announced the end of the Watchmen lawsuit", and we'll all have a story to tell.

Go. Be with your loved ones.

At least until the battle is rejoined over how much money was actually made.

Also, it does mention Fox having notified them before principal photo began, so I win another point on the Internet Scoreboard! Woohoo!

 

[Cthulhudrew]

Wonder if WB will scuttle the film now out of spite, so that they don't have to pay Fox anything. Silly business.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Nah...especially not now that they've added a bunch of legal fees to the costs of getting the film to market.

Nobody can afford $100M+ losses due to spite.