Studios Slug It Out over Watchmen

No sooner do we get the luscious trailer for Watchmen, Zack Snyder's big-screen adaptation of the seminal graphic novel, than the actual release of the film itself next March gets called into question, much to the dismay of its potential audience.

20th Century Fox, which says it owns the rights to Watchmen, is seeking an injunction to stop Warner Brothers from distributing the film – even though Fox apparently passed on the project and stood by while it first allowed the producer, Lawrence Gordon, to shop it to other studios, and then watched Warners actually sink $100 million into the picture.

The wrangling is mired in Hollywood contract-ese, but the upshot is Watchmen's release, after 20 years of development hell, could be further delayed while the two studios fight over points and profits on a very hot commodity that both studios are no doubt hoping will be the next Dark Knight.

Variety aired speculation that Fox preferred to see Watchmen canned rather than not get a percentage, promoting threats of boycotts against upcoming Fox projects like The Day the Earth Stood Still and X-Men: Wolverine. Fans are outraged that lawyers and pencilpushers are getting in the way of the long-awaited film adaptation; some are calling for protests and even more extreme action against Fox.

Hysteria and innuendo aside, chances that the movie will get completely shelved are slim. Fox is asserting its ownership rights to get control of a share of the film's lucrative distribution revenues. Meanwhile, though circumstances have cast them as the villains in this story, they say they're not the bad guys. "Of course we are concerned about the fans; however, any disappointment from the core fans should not be directed toward Fox," a studio source told Entertainment Weekly, in a statement widely requoted around the net. "What we are doing is seeking to enforce our distribution rights to Watchmen. Legal copyright ownership should not just be swept under the rug and ignored."

What's most interesting about this is how the entertainment media and blogsters are predicting "fanboy fury" and geek outrage recoiling against Fox – as if the appeal for films like Dark Knight and Watchmen were limited solely to the cartoon caricature version of the comic book aficionado.

So is the film any good?
Watchmen co-creator Dave Gibbons has seen a 2:45 rough cut of the film and pronounced it "very sexy, very violent," according to The Times of London. Gibbons's partner, Alan Moore, has famously turned his back on Hollywood, but it seems possible that even he might be won over.

At least if we go by Kevin Smith, who's seen an early cut as well. "I saw Watchmen. It's f------ astounding," he said on MySpace. "The Non-Disclosure Agreement I signed prevents me from saying much, but I can spout the following with complete joygasmic enthusiasm: Snyder and Co. have pulled it off. Remember that feeling of watching Sin City on the big screen and being blown away by what a faithful translation of the source material it was, in terms of both content and visuals? Triple that, and you'll come close to watching Watchmen. Even Alan Moore might be surprised at how close the movie is to the book. March can't come soon enough."

Assuming, that is, that Warners isn't prevented from putting it out in March. Clearly Fox doesn't want to be tarred with being the studio that kept Watchmen out of theaters; the problem is these two studios are playing chicken with a movie, and a moviegoing public, that deserves better treatment.