Legal issues pt. 2

20th Century Fox is suing Warner Brothers over Watchmen. This lawsuit is a little complicated with the legal red tape.

Watchmen is owned by DC Comics, which is owned by Warner Brothers, right? Not so fast, says Fox.

According to Fox they have they rights to develop, produce, and distribute a Watchmen movie. Fox had the movie rights to the comic book series from 1986-1990. Then they assigned some of those rights with a quitclaim to Largo Entertainment with the understanding that they had exclusive distribution rights.

From this came a couple of screenplays, but Largo dissolves and development rights go to producer Lawrence Gordon. The idea goes around Universal and Paramount, but nothing happens, and everything ends up back at Warners.

But wait, there's more.

Lawrence Gordon had a "turnaround agreement" with Fox, that he would pay a buy out price if he came to an agreement with another party to develop or produce Watchmen.

So now Fox is saying they want monetary damages and to “restrain [Warner Bros. Pictures] from taking actions that violate Fox’s copyrights and which stand to forever impair Fox’s rights to control the distribution and development of this unique work.”

This could mean a delay in Watchmen's 2009 release while the contracts get sorted out.