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Watchmen producer Lloyd Levin speaks: Fox should stand down
Lloyd Levin, one of the producers of the upcoming Watchmen movie, has chimed in with his impassioned two cents on the current dispute over ownership rights to the project raging between Fox and Warner Brothers. Levin lets his thoughts be known in an open letter on the HitFix.com Web site.
Without addressing the actual legal issues—which will be adjudicated in federal court—Levin has his own solution to the impasse: Fox should just shut the frak up.
Of course, Levin has a huge stake in Fox's going away quietly: Fox seeks to block release of the film pending the outcome of the case, now set to go to court Jan. 20. Watchmen is slated for release on March 6.
Here's a part of Levin's letter:
"From my point of view, the flashpoint of this dispute came in late spring of 2005. Both Fox and Warner Brothers were offered the chance to make Watchmen. They were submitted the same package, at the same time. It included a cover letter describing the project and its history, budget information, a screenplay, the graphic novel, and it made mention that a top director was involved.
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"And it's at this point, where the response from both parties could not have been more radically different.
"The response we got from Fox was a flat 'pass.' That's it. An internal Fox e-mail documents that executives there felt the script was one of the most unintelligible pieces of s--t they had read in years. Conversely, Warner Brothers called us after having read the script and said they were interested in the movie—yes, they were unsure of the screenplay, and had many questions, but wanted to set a meeting to discuss the project, which they promptly did. Did anyone at Fox ask to meet on the movie? No. Did anyone at Fox express any interest in the movie? No. Express even the slightest interest in the movie? Or the graphic novel? No. ...
"It seems beyond cynical for the studio to claim ownership at this point. ...
"For the sake of the artists involved, for the hundreds of people, executives and filmmakers, actors and crew, who invested their time, their money, and dedicated a good portion of their lives in order to bring this extraordinary project to life, the question of what is right is clear and unambiguous—Fox should stand down with its claim."
By Mikeybeez at 10:17 PM ON 01/08/09
Gosh, Superduperman was really funny and very detailed. Of course anything illustrated by Wallace Wood falls into that category. Maybe Fox should have given the project to their News division; they do better fiction than most.
By paraseek.com at 1:24 PM ON 01/09/09
With all due respect, if FOX owns the rights, FXO owns the rights. It doesn't matter if they passed. If you own the rights to something, don't you have the right not to make it as well?
By RyoGeo at 12:39 AM ON 01/10/09
Para, I think the point is, they didn't even get to the point of acquiring the rights. The lead in packet that would have lead to such a discussion was flat out refused, if this article is accurate. FOX's claim is based on some verbal agreement, which is utterly ridiculous.
Hey wait, I know. I have a verbal agreement to make Dark night! Where's my check! Seems like FOX's claim has all the validity as those last two sentences.
By Michael X Maelstrom at 2:18 AM ON 01/10/09
Fox doesn't own the rights, they sold the rights to Levin.
The "catch" is that Watchmen was sold in "turnaround".
which in Hollywood means that every time you change the project (script, director, actors, budget), you must re-submit the project to the people that sold you the rights, for their first right to accept or reject the "new" version of the project, BEFORE you can sell it to anyone else.
Levin is saying he did that and Fox refused, if that's true, Fox has no case.
However to be fair, that's Levin's side of the story, if you ask Fox, I'm willing to bet they're going to say "we were NOT offered the project as it currently exists".
In which case, they will win.
"Turnaround" is a pretty obscure Hollywood term, usually it's handled internally with "good faith" being the primary criteria, but with lawyers involved, nailing down a finely-tuned legal definition of "turnaround" is _really_ needed.
If only to stop the corporations from raiding other corporations already completed works by using -any- change to a (completed) movie as an excuse to say,
"see, I wasn't offered THIS version of the film! so according to the rules of Turnaround, I still own the rights!".
Ask me, Even if Fox wins the case, it'll only bite them on the arse when the perceived-as-a-dick-move results in a Hollywood vendetta and other Hollywood studios start gunning for already completed Fox films using an,
"uh it was in Turnaround, you CHANGED THE CATERERS! and didn't re-submit the work to us for our right to make it, so we still own it!" argument.
Also, I'm starting to think that there ought be a mechanism in place to FORCE a change in judges so that the SAME judge doesn't handle all these cases.
Fees for example handled a previous case between Fox and the WB and ruled in favour of Fox before (over the rights to The Dukes of Hazzard which cost the WB close to 20 million dollars).
Now the same judge (Fees) is ruling in favour of Fox again and advising that The WB settle.
Sounds a bit iffy to me.
How do we know Fees hasn't been bought? not to throw aspersions on the judge, but in cases like this that involve millions of dollars I think you need to change the judge so that the appearance of justice is served, imo.
mXm
By Michael X Maelstrom at 2:28 AM ON 01/10/09
correction: to be more precise: Fox doesn't own the rights, _Lawrence Gordon_ bought them from Fox ("in turnaround") and sold them to the WB.
mXm
By Michael X Maelstrom at 2:55 AM ON 01/10/09
correction #2: The judge's name is Feess (Gary Allen) not Fees.
Sorry bout that, HEY SCI FI WIRE, please bring msg-EDITING in so I don't look like such a twonk next time K. :)
mXm
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Michael X Maelstrom:
correction #2: The judge's name is Feess (Gary Allen) not Fees. Sorry bout that, HEY SCI FI WIRE, please bring msg...More »