“Watchmen” in Trouble - In the Bookroom

In the Bookroom

Blog

In the Bookroom

« Veeps: What Does History Tell ... | Main | Desperately Seeking Male Libra... »

Link This | Email this | Blog This | Comments (1)

Michael Rogers

“Watchmen” in Trouble
September 3, 2008

For Fanboys this has been the greatest movie-going summer since 1981 when The Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark debuted within weeks of each other. Since early May when the film season exploded with Iron Man it’s been one geekfest after another with Indy IV, Mummy III, a revamped Incredible Hulk, Star Wars: Clone Wars, and the box-office monster The Dark Knight. Fans already are gearing up for the much-awaited Watchmen but there’s trouble on the horizon.

It seems that 20th Century Fox originally licensed the film rights to Alan Moore’s smash graphic novel, but never developed it. The property somehow then shifted to Warner Bros. which did. Fox, however, has slammed Warner’s with a copyright suit claiming to still own the Watchmen rights and is suing to block the film’s March 6, 2009 release. Fox claims it contracted Warner’s legal crew several times during the film’s production to apprise them of the copyright violation, but were ignored. Now Fox wants the film shelved, and a judge has permitted the suit to proceed, so Watchmen might never get watched. Fans are crying foul and threatening to boycott other forthcoming Fox properties like the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still and most notably, X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Should Fox, whose summer fare (X-Files, Meet Dave, etc.) all tanked, be nervous? Unfortunately, no. It’s the awful truth that as much as fanboys rant in chatrooms and send nasty emails to execs, in the end they always plunk down their bucks no matter what. Casting Keanu Reaves might have torpedoed Day the Earth Stood Still’s popularity from the beginning, but believe me, nothing short of plague or nuclear Armageddon could keep them away from Wolverine. They can’t help themselves, which is why studios keep churning out crap. My guess is that Warner will give Fox a big, fat check and that will be the end of the lawsuit and Watchmen will debut as planned. We’ll see—or not.

Posted by Michael Rogers on September 3, 2008 | Comments (1)

September 3, 2008
In response to: “Watchmen” in Trouble
J Osicki commented:

Quite right, save for the choice of '81 as best fanboy moviegoing summer. 1982 is impossible to top - what with BLADE RUNNER, STAR TREK II, TRON, E.T., JOHN CARPENTER'S THE THING, CONAN THE BARBARIAN, THE SECRET OF NIMH, PINK FLOYD THE WALL, SWAMP THING, the North American bow of THE ROAD WARRIOR, and the perennial sentimental favorite, MEGAFORCE) - except maybe by 1984 (INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM, STAR TREK III, GHOSTBUSTERS, BUCKAROO BANZAI, CONAN THE DESTROYER, DREAMSCAPE, GREMLINS, and THE LAST STARFIGHTER - throw in MUPPETS TAKE MANHATTAN and SHEENA if you wanna). And forget about arguing that my hindsight is 20-20; even the few of the above films which weren't hits had their share of fanboys and fangirls waiting impatiently for them to hit theatres, thanks to such invaluable pre-Web promotional means as STARLOG magazine (God bless 'em), sci-fi conventions, trailers, and, of course, good old-fashioned word of mouth, all of which worked in STAR WARS' favor back in the day.