'Watchmen' movie under attack

Nikki Finke, who writes like an air-raid siren on her Deadline Hollywood Daily, just posted a breathless dispatch saying that there might be big trouble a-brewin' for "Watchmen" (which has now officially earned the status of "The Only Movie that Matters" to fanboys everywhere). "Watchmen," due in March, is a Warner Bros. film (what is it with this studio, can't they just be boring for a minute?) but it has a long and tangled background as a property. Which leads us to fighting Finke's frantic financial finding:

URGENT! Warner's 'Watchmen' In Legal Peril EXCLUSIVE:  A judge has denied a Warner Bros motion to dismiss 20th Century Fox's legal battle over the rights to develop, produce and distribute a film based on the graphic novel Watchmen. This is huge Hollywood news because Warner Bros plans to release on March 2009 its highly anticipated big-screen version of the popular comic book written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons. Fox was seeking to enjoin Warner Bros from going forward with the project, and the judge on Friday refused to dismiss the lawsuit filed by Fox on February 12th of this year.

You can find the whole post right here. Finke, a former Los Angeles Times writer who is by all accounts one of the best-sourced reporters in town, sums up at the end:

This is indeed a stunning development which could imperil Warner Bros' entire 2009 movie slate. Sources point out to me that Warner Bros had a similar problem with the Dukes Of Hazzard movie and had to pay tens of millions of dollars to release the film. I'm in the process of obtaining more details.

She's absolutely right about "The Dukes of Hazzard" but the fact that such a truly forgettable project managed to somehow survive its courtroom ordeal makes me not worry too much about Warner Bros. saving "Watchmen," especially since they do have so much at stake in the film. Really, the upshot here is that Warner Bros. may have to cough up a lot more money to get the movie done. That news, I suspect, will be met with loud cheers by the disenchanted fans of a certain boy wizard.

-- Geoff Boucher

Photo from "Watchmen" courtesy of Warner Bros.

RELATED All "Watchmen" coverage at Hero Complex

 

Comments

[Stella]

My brother haven't stop talking about the Watchman comic book nor the movie. He has been waiting to see it since it leek that it was being filmed. According to him, "the Watchman surpass X-men 10 fold." So now I am hype about this movie and I WANT TO SEE IT.

[Mike]

I hope this movie doesn't see the light of day. The director has clearly destroyed Moore's vision and replaced it with his own twisted and immature one.

[dxk000]

Sir;

"Watchmen" was a fine story and, I trust, will be a fine film.

Reading a blog entry about a blog entry about "Watchmen", was not very fine. I shall try to avoid doing so in the future.

[David]

Well the trailer for this one looks completely awful. I'll wait for the DVD.

[chadimus]

Really? Moore's vision was destroyed? I just looked behind me and see his comics sitting right on the shelf... apparently not destroyed. You see... there are things called "movies" and things called "books" and they are "different". I assure you that Moore's considerable bank account was also not destroyed in the making of this film. I am sometimes saddened when the originating material is eclipsed by the more mainstream version, but then again most of those types wouldn't read the comic books they were based on to begin with. At least they are exposed to his compromised "vision" and may pick up the books at some point. Anyway, calmer than you are...

[Julia]

I hope WB have to shell out a TON of money to get Watchmen released. Call it KARMA or whatever you want but I find it HILARIOUS that this is happening to them just a week after they screwed over millions of Harry Potter fans in an attempt to get more money.

I hate to be so spiteful but I'm still so furious and it serves them right to get hit where it hurts: their wallets!

[mike]

WATCHMEN