As most comic aficionados know by now, the already murky future of the Watchmen film looks set to be in for even more trouble. Last week a US federal judge ruled that Warner Bros, the studio backing the film has violated 20th Century Fox’s copyright in the film. Fox had the original rights to the film way back in 1986, but after they decided not to go through with production producer Lawrence Gordon shopped it around to other studios and eventually settled with Warner. Now Fox is alleging that they never completely lost their rights over the film and that by rights (are you getting tired of that word? I sure am), they are responsible for at least the distribution of the film. With the case officially being heard in court in January, many are worried that this will mean a delay of the film’s 3rd March 2009 release date.
Personally, I lost my love for Fox a long time ago. This studio has been responsible for butchering movies that would have probably been brilliant in other hands. Let’s take a look at Fox’s track record in recent years: Jumper, X-Men: The Last Stand, May Payne, Alien Vs Predators: Requiem, X-Files 2, The Happening, Fantastic Four: Rise of The Silver Surfer. I think this list speaks for itself, critically and commercially. Fox also cancelled some of my all-time favourite quality shows like Wonderfalls, Serenity and Dark Angel. Oh, and the Wolverine trailer has all the excitement of a dead duck too.
One question, Fox: why bring up all the chaos now, when production has already wrapped up on the film? I’ve read that Fox did send Warner a warning that they were infringing on Fox’s copyrights before production began, but Zack Snyder says that nobody interfered with the actual production of the film. Plus, Fox made it absolutely clear that they weren’t interested in producing the film when they had the chance.
According to Wall Street Journal, Fox’s operating income fell by 31% in recent months thanks to the fact that their releases have sucked really badly and failed to net any real profit. Surprised, anyone? It figures that they’d want to get their hands on a film that actually looks like it’s going to be great. Being buruk siku is not going to win you any faith back, Fox.
I really hope Warner wins their case against Fox; at this point, I don’t care if the release date is delayed, I just don’t want a movie that looks this amazing and this faithful to the comic to be unreleased forever. Because if there’s one film that looks like it’s going to live up to the original comic (short-listed in Time’s 100 Greatest Literature of the 20th century and generally agreed to be the most renowned graphic novel ever), it’s Watchmen.
Hey, Fox? Go lick your penniless wounds elsewhere. I’ve already wasted close to RM100 over the years from going to watch your stupid films in the cinema. Please don’t ruin Watchmen for us all.
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