The pertinent part from the NY Times...
"The report also outlined conflicting requests for a trial date: as early as next June, if Fox has its way, or April, if Warner prevails." This means we may not see Watchmen until summer--if at all! Especially since the suit states that Fox is indeed trying to kill the release indefinitely!"
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Here is the rest...
Lawyers for Warner Brothers, which has already shot a movie of this graphic novel about the seamier side of superhero life, and lawyers for 20th Century Fox, which claims it owns the rights to the material, laid plans for a frenzied fight in a joint report submitted to the federal court here on Friday.
Fox has said it will seek an injunction blocking Warner’s planned release of the film next March. Warner has argued that Fox should not be allowed to stop the movie, after standing by while Warner and its partners on the film, Paramount Pictures and Legendary Pictures, spent more than $100 million on the production, directed by Zack Snyder (“300”).
In a summary of its position in Friday’s report, Warner said Fox “sat silently” as one of the producers of “Watchmen,” Lawrence Gordon, took the project “to studio after studio with Fox’s express knowledge.”
Fox, which filed a lawsuit in February, has claimed in its own filings that Mr. Gordon did not keep the studio apprised of his plans, as required by a 1994 agreement. That deal granted Mr. Gordon rights to “Watchmen” in “turnaround” — an industry term for arrangements under which producers can move a project from one studio to another under certain conditions.
In Warner’s version of events, Mr. Gordon, who is not named as a defendant in the Fox suit, actually offered the project to Fox in 2005, shortly before bringing it to Warner after years of trying to make the movie with Paramount. “Fox simply rejected it,” Warner said in the Friday filing.
On Friday Warner said Fox had gone so far as to grant it rights to the title “Watchmen,” which Fox had earlier registered with the Motion Picture Association of America.
Fox, moreover, was paid $320,000 by one of Mr. Gordon’s companies for rights to “Watchmen” as early as 1991, Warner lawyers said in the report. Fox has said that agreement was superseded by a later deal, under which Mr. Gordon was supposed to deliver a much larger buyout price that has never been paid.
The report also outlined conflicting requests for a trial date: as early as next June, if Fox has its way, or April, if Warner prevails.
Friday’s filing makes it clear that not only Mr. Gordon, but also Paramount, Legendary and even Universal Pictures can expect to be drawn into the fray. Universal had tried to make a version of the film in 2001, before Paramount took over. And though Paramount dropped its plans for the movie, it became involved as a partner when Warner teamed up with the director Mr. Snyder in the wake of the box office success of “300.”