Some people are trying to form a boycott of 20th Century Fox over the studio’s insistence that they still own rights to any motion picture based on the Watchmen graphic novel. A federal judge recently agreed with 20th Century Fox. From the Facebook Free Watchmen group:
20th Century Fox is trying to prohibit the release of Warner Brothers’ upcoming film, Watchmen. Watchmen is one of the highest regarded pieces of work in the comic and literary world. It was on Times 100 best novels of the 20th century.
Scheduled to release next year, Fox is trying claim rights even after sitting back and allowing WB to pour time, money, and talent into. Now, after an abysmal summer for Fox, they are reaching out to try and stamp out another studio’s success.
I propose a boycott of all 20th Century Fox productions in protest of their detestable actions.
I actually think it’s kind of funny the Warner Brothers would make a movie based on a property they don’t have the rights to. With all the lawyers they have at their disposal, they couldn’t figure out that 20th Century Fox still owned the rights to a Watchmen movie?
It would appear that maybe they knew all along.
From
These three filings in particular provide detailed allegations as to how Warner Brothers got into this mess. In a nutshell, Fox claims that it has evidence that Warner Brothers initially relied on an inaccurate chain of title provided by Paramount. Once Warner Brothers was aware of Fox’s documented claims, it nonetheless decided to proceed in a deliberate “business calculation” that it would be more profitable to deal with a court case than clear the rights before making Watchmen.
Warner Brothers royally screwed up. They made the wrong business decision to make a movie they knew they didn’t have iron clad rights to. 20th Century Fox isn’t the villain here.
