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20th Century Fox Gets Chunk in Settlement Over 'Watchmen' Movie
The American Lawyer
January 20, 2009
As we predicted Thursday, Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox have settled their ongoing rights battle over the "Watchmen" movie, a fight that geeks worldwide feared would jeopardize the long-awaited release of a film that several directors have abandoned over the last two decades because of the complex nature of the graphic novel's narrative.
The settlement is confidential, but Fox and its legal team at Alston & Bird won one significant concession from Warners: money. Fox will get a cut, estimated to be between 6 percent and 8.5 percent, of the movie's worldwide gross. That will almost certainly add up to tens of millions of dollars -- more than enough to cover Fox's legal fees and more than the zero dollars Warners claimed Fox was entitled to when the litigation started.
To review: Fox filed suit, claiming it retained -- at the very least -- the right to a part in the film's distribution based on agreements the studio reached with independent producer Lawrence Gordon in the early 1990s. Fox claimed Warners proceeded with the movie's production without giving Fox its right of first refusal to make its own version. Warners asked Judge Garry Feess to dismiss Fox's claim, arguing that Fox had relinquished all rights to the movie in a series of convoluted deals with Gordon.
Feess ultimately decided that Fox was indeed entitled to a share of the distribution rights and urged the parties to settle.
Fox won't get all it wanted, according to reports from The New York Times and Reuters; the studio won't be credited as a co-distributor of the film.
One thing remains unclear: whether Fox will get a piece of any "Watchmen" sequels or spin-offs. The NYT says it will, but Reuters is reporting that Fox "will not own a piece of the 'Watchmen' property going forward."
The three key lawyers in the case (Louis Karasik of Alston for Fox, and Patricia Glaser of Glaser, Weil, Fink, Jacobs & Shapiro and Steven Marenberg of Irell & Manella for Warners) did not immediately return calls for comment.
This article first appeared on The Am Law Daily blog on AmericanLawyer.com.
