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It's all in the fine print...
I work in an office -- lame I know -- but I work in a film production office. In my day-to-day routine I interact with executives at some of the largest production companies in North America -- and these guys are detail oriented. I spend half my day just covering my ass, in case someone wants to know how much it would have cost to rent walkies from some other vendor. It's true what they say, the devil is in the details.
While reading Variety online, as I do, I was dumbfounded how something like this could happen. How does one of the largest production companies in North America, Warner Brothers, neglect to realize that another of the largest production companies in North America, Fox, holds a copyright to the film they are developing? The odds of this happening, especially with a major market project like Watchmen, is one in a billion.
Most people don't understand the length of time it takes a movie to go from Concept to Screen. It can takes years for an idea to even be greenlit, let alone hit theaters. The Watchmen has been in some form of development since 1986 - that's 22 years. In the case of Warner Brothers, they have been developing the project since 2005. While a movie sits in development, that's usually when the basics are figured out; who's going to write it, who's going to direct it, who's going to star it, and, who owns the rights to the property. That's a lot of legal contracts to go over -- I know.
While studying producing in my first year of film school, one of the first topics we touched on was chain of command. What it boils down to is a list of whose had an option on an idea at any point in time - as simple as that. So if a kid, fresh out of film school, understands the concept of copyright ownership -- why doesn't the legal team of a huge production company?
Well, it all has to do with the grey area in which Fox is suing. It's called a "Turnaround Clause," and from my research this means that though Fox doesn't technically own the rights to the Watchmen, because there were changed elements - specifically writers and directors -- it is the responsibility of the producers that Fox sold the rights to, to let Fox take another look at it before they take it to another company. This never happened, and now Fox wants in on the action - especially with the Box Office success of The Dark Knight.
So Fox is suing, and it looks like they've got a leg to stand on -- as a court date has been set. One of two things could happen; either The Watchmen doesn't see the light of day, or Warners has to give Fox a buttload of money -- I'm betting on the latter. But I guess we sit and wait to see.
Until than, check out some videos of the Watchmen here.
www.nathanielmoher.com
While reading Variety online, as I do, I was dumbfounded how something like this could happen. How does one of the largest production companies in North America, Warner Brothers, neglect to realize that another of the largest production companies in North America, Fox, holds a copyright to the film they are developing? The odds of this happening, especially with a major market project like Watchmen, is one in a billion.
Most people don't understand the length of time it takes a movie to go from Concept to Screen. It can takes years for an idea to even be greenlit, let alone hit theaters. The Watchmen has been in some form of development since 1986 - that's 22 years. In the case of Warner Brothers, they have been developing the project since 2005. While a movie sits in development, that's usually when the basics are figured out; who's going to write it, who's going to direct it, who's going to star it, and, who owns the rights to the property. That's a lot of legal contracts to go over -- I know.
While studying producing in my first year of film school, one of the first topics we touched on was chain of command. What it boils down to is a list of whose had an option on an idea at any point in time - as simple as that. So if a kid, fresh out of film school, understands the concept of copyright ownership -- why doesn't the legal team of a huge production company?
Well, it all has to do with the grey area in which Fox is suing. It's called a "Turnaround Clause," and from my research this means that though Fox doesn't technically own the rights to the Watchmen, because there were changed elements - specifically writers and directors -- it is the responsibility of the producers that Fox sold the rights to, to let Fox take another look at it before they take it to another company. This never happened, and now Fox wants in on the action - especially with the Box Office success of The Dark Knight.
So Fox is suing, and it looks like they've got a leg to stand on -- as a court date has been set. One of two things could happen; either The Watchmen doesn't see the light of day, or Warners has to give Fox a buttload of money -- I'm betting on the latter. But I guess we sit and wait to see.
Until than, check out some videos of the Watchmen here.
www.nathanielmoher.com
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1 Comment
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Comment by Sandeep Chauhan on October 7, 2008 at 8:35pm - This is even weirder when you take into account that Warner Brothers owns DC Comics which owns The Watchmen. Bizarre.
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