Fox About To Get Paid For A Movie It Had Absolutely Nothing To Do With
from the screwy-copyright-laws... dept
Back in August, we noted just how silly it was that 20th Century Fox was suing Warner Bros. Studios over the movie The Watchmen. Fox had purchased the rights to make a movie out of the graphic novel decades ago, but decided not to make the movie. After the project bounced around at a few different studios, Warner took it on, and the movie is considered one of the most anticipated blockbusters of 2009. Yet, in a somewhat surprising move (since he'd originally said a trial would be needed next year), a judge has ruled that Fox does, indeed, own a copyright interest in the movie. This almost certainly means that Warner will come to some form of a settlement pretty quickly, so as not to delay or hinder the movie in any manner. In effect, that means that Fox is about to get a pretty big pay day for doing absolutely nothing on a movie that it didn't want to make. That seems to go against everything copyright is supposed to stand for.Now, obviously, it's pretty stunning that Warner would make this movie without its lawyers being sure that Warner owned all the rights to the film, but as we wrote in the original post, it seems rather silly to sell movie "rights" in the first place. There are plenty of mechanisms to make sure that the original creator of a story can get paid when his or her story is adapted that don't require copyright -- and allowing multiple parties to try to make a film out of a single story should lead to better overall film making. Fox didn't want to make this movie, so Warner stepped up and made a movie that many are expecting to be fantastic. Why should Fox be rewarded for its own failure to make a movie?
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Filed Under: movie rights, movies, watchmen
Companies: 20th century fox, warner bros. studios
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Trolling?
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Re: Trolling?
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Give in...
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Warner should cancel the release.
Despite its anticipated release, this should be a message to movie goers worldwide on the reason ticket prices continue to skyrocket.
Now the fan is going to pay for it eventually with higher prices. Lawsuits aren't free and if there's "sharing" involved with the profits, you can bet Warner's going to try to make up for it once the original cost of the picture is made.
What truly sucks in all this will be the sequel. If Warner has done an exceptional job of adaptation, a sequel will never happen as Fox clearly has no clue on how to make decent movies.
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Re: Warner should cancel the release.
if the film follows the graphic novel at all, there is no way to make a sequel. a prequel maybe...
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Didn't they pay someone else?
Sounds like Warner Bros. should sue Marvel or demand their money back.
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Re: Didn't they pay someone else?
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unfortunately, i'm with fox on this one
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Not Marvel
On an interesting note, the actual creator of the work, Alan Moore, is getting much pleasure out of this current situation. Though I doubt he will actually see much or any profit out of the movie, as DC has a history of screwing him out of any proceeds they make off his brilliant and "inherently unfilmable" work.
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Re:
"Why should Fox be rewarded for its own failure to make a movie?"
...I think the "should" refers to how he thinks the system should operate if copyright was implemented fairly or at least as originally intended, not as it is today.
Personally, I don't see a problem (in principal) with a content creator/owner selling the movie rights to their art work. Sure, the Watchmen example is extreme, but I think it would strike most people as fair that the author of a comic book should profit somehow if they make a movie of the comic book (and, by extension, that if the author sold the rights to a third party, that the third party should also profit.)
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Re:
you can always make something again. the bourne identity was a TV miniseries in the 80's before it became a big budget action film. the lord of the rings was a cartoon in years past.
exclusive deals that tie up rights are a detriment to all the parties involved.
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Re: Re:
You can probably make a case that exclusive movie rights harms the overall public, but it's laughable to suggest that this kind of arrangement is detrimental to all parties involved. I'm sure that the artists who sell the movie rights and get a big fat check don't feel harmed. I'm sure that the movie studio which is able to shut out its competition doesn't feel harmed. You may not agree with the system that allows for exclusive movie rights, but it wouldn't happen if somebody didn't profit.
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i'll bet the checks to the artists for these deals aren't that fat to begin with, and even if they are, the artist could make more by selling the rights multiple times.
shutting out the competition only works out if they don't return the favor. if preemptively buying rights becomes standard operating procedure in the film industry, the cost of making more movies will continue to go up.
spending a lot on a production doesn't automatically make it successful. spending less on a production makes it easier for said production to become profitable.
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Re: Credit???
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Re: Re: Credit???
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Fox owned rights to it
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Re: Fox owned rights to it
Actually, they had plenty of choices.
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Re: Fox owned rights to it
and I also take issue with this statement:
"There are plenty of mechanisms to make sure that the original creator of a story can get paid when his or her story is adapted that don't require copyright -- and allowing multiple parties to try to make a film out of a single story should lead to better overall film making."
That is crazy! The laws are not there just to insure someone gets paid for IP.. It ensures that the holder of the IP has control over what others do with it. If I wrote a story, I would not want someone to come in and make a crappy version of it for film.
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Re: Re: Fox owned rights to it
IP laws were not intended for such control purposes.
Besides, in that effort to stop someone from making a crappy version, you're also denying plenty of opportunities to make a fantastic, wonderful version of it.
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Re: Re: Fox owned rights to it
If that's true, explain all the crappy movies that come out of Hollywood. Dark Knight aside, there's been almost nothing of real value in over a decade.
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Re:
that's probably why fox is doing this, so it gets real money, not an imaginary percentage of some accounting magic.
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to be fair...
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What planet do you live on? In the US copyright is specifically designed so that copyright holders are able to sit on their asses in perpetuity and get paid for it.
Now if you're talking about the good old days, when copyrights only lasted 15 years, you're probably correct. With a 15 year limit copyright holders were actually forced to get off their buts and do stuff every so often in order to ensure a revenue stream.
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How did this happen?
(I know, the obvious answer is that they considered Watchmen "unfilmable", so they took money from Fox for a movie they knew would never be made.)
Second, didn't the Warner Bros' lawyers make sure that they had the legal rights to product the movie?
Or is Fox only suing now that the movie has been made and is looking to become a big hit in March? I doubt Fox really cared about their rights so long as the movie was "unfilmable".
And with a planned release date in March, you can bet that Fox will be pressuring Warner Bros to make a settlement rather than see their film get delayed.
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FOX is a waste of space.
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That's Nothing
That person did a writeup of the ides, sold it to some Pope, and he published it back in the year 400 in some early edition of the Bible, and an ancestor of mine who was related to the guy who came up with the original idea sued the Pope, and our family has been collecting royalties ever since, the counterfeit book was pulled from the Bible, and we now are filthy rich.
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