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More Info on the Fox vs. WB WATCHMEN Suit
By
Jarrod Sarafin
August 27, 2008
Source: New York Times
Dr. Manhattan is electrifying in WATCHMEN(2008).
© Warner Bros.
As most of you know, there's currently a lawsuit between 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros. on the latter's upcoming adaptation of Watchmen. A suit which is causing a fan boy flame up around the web due to the fact that even the March 2009 release of Zack Snyder's film is now in question. Well, the New York Times just gave those fans a closer look on what's going on here, which I'll pass down below. The Fox-Warner tiff turns on matters potentially more nettlesome to the industry at large. Central to Fox’s complaint is the mysterious matter of what is called turnaround.
On its face, turnaround is a contractual mechanism that allows a studio to release its interest in a dormant film project, while recovering costs, plus interest, from any rival that eventually adopts the project. But turnaround is a stacked deck.
The turnaround clauses in a typical contract are also insurance for studio executives who do not want to be humiliated by a competitor who makes a hit out of their castoffs.
That trick turns on a term of art: “changed elements.” A producer of a movie acquired in turnaround who comes up with a new director, or star, or story line, or even a reduction in budget, must give the original studio another shot at making the movie because of changed elements, even if a new backer has entered the picture.
Thus, “Michael Clayton” was put in turnaround by Castle Rock Entertainment (which, like Warner, belongs to Time Warner). When George Clooney became attached to star in it, however, Castle Rock stood on its right to be involved as a producer of what turned out to be an Oscar-nominated film.
Fox, in its complaint filed in February with the United States District Court for the Central District of California, contended, among other things, that Lawrence Gordon, a producer of “Watchmen,” was given a somewhat unusual perpetual turnaround right under an agreement reached in 1994. Such rights are conventionally given for a finite period, but Mr. Gordon, as a powerful producer who was once a Fox studio chief, may have had an edge.
According to the court filings, Fox had declared its willingness to part with the project under certain terms in 1991. In any case, Fox says, Mr. Gordon was supposed to resubmit “Watchmen” to Fox every time he came up with a changed element. To read more, click the link above.
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