The Battle for the Watchmen Movie

By Baddie September 2, 2008 7:33 PM

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The legal battle lines are drawn as more combatants enter the fray. The studio war between 20th Century Fox and Warner Brothers for the Watchmen movie rights heated up on Friday when the respective lawyers of both camps submitted a joint report to the federal court.

According to the New York Times, the report outlined conflicting accounts on the trail of the Watchmen movie rights. Fox claims it owns the rights to the material and it wants to block the March 2009 release of the movie. Warner says Fox lost the movie rights after it rejected a pitch for the movie by Lawrence Gordon, one of the movie's producers. Fox then allegedly sold the rights to a company owned by Gordon. This filing suggests that other studios like Paramount and Universal can be expected to be involved in this legal battle. The report also includes different requests for a trial date; June 2009 for Fox and April 2009 for Warner.

The Watchmen movie, directed by Zack Snyder ("300"), is already in post-production. Based on the most celebrated graphic novel of all time, a lot of fans were already anxious to see it even before the legal circus came to town.

Who watches the Watchmen? Right now, it seems like the answer to that is everybody and their cat.

UPDATE: Los Angeles federal judge Gary Allen Feess has set a January 6th trial date. More on this development HERE.

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