Rejoice! "Watchmen" Deal Reached

LOS ANGELES — The superhero film "Watchmen" will be watched by audiences after all _ and on time.

Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox settled their nearly yearlong dispute over the movie on Thursday, the studios announced in a joint statement.

The movie will open in theaters as planned on March 6, the statement said. The exact terms of the agreement were not disclosed and will remain confidential.

The release date had been in doubt for months as each studio's attorneys grappled for an upper hand. Fox contended that Warner Bros. shot the film knowing that it didn't have all the adequate rights; Warner Bros. countered that Fox had lost its rights in the graphic novel and was owed nothing more than a right of first refusal.

At stake was a movie that has stoked the excitement of "Watchmen" fans and that Warner Bros. claims cost it $150 million to film and market.

Until recently, the studios appeared to be in a stalemate as protracted as the Cold War backdrop of the film's source material. But a Christmas Eve ruling by U.S. District Judge Gary Allen Feess found that Fox did have at least a distribution stake in the film.

Within days of that ruling, Warner Bros. and Fox were in serious settlement negotiations.

Attorneys were scheduled to update Feess on the settlement Friday morning.

While the studios agreed on little throughout the case, the statement released Thursday sought to end months of acrimony.

"Warner Bros. and Fox, like all 'Watchmen' fans, look forward with great anticipation to this film's March 6 release in theaters," the statement said.

As part of the agreement, both sides acknowledged the others were acting in "good faith," although Warner Bros. conceded Fox notified it of its rights before filming began.

Fox acquired movie rights to "Watchmen," a graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, in the 1980s.

The project has had a tortured course to the big screen, with Warner Bros. having to resolve issues with other studios that had considered making the film.

The various agreements led Feess to declare during one hearing that the case was "very complex, convoluted."

The same could be said for "Watchmen," which features a complex story line set in an alternate-history United States and characters with names such as Rorschach and Ozymandias.

"Watchmen" has generated considerable buzz, in part because of the threat that the film's release would be delayed or blocked. But the attention is also because its director, Zack Snyder, helped turn another graphic novel, "300," into a blockbuster.

Comments

[marred]

07:45 PM on 01/17/2009

Oh thank god! The thought of us not being able to view yet another mediocre superhero movie was getting to be too much to handle!!!

[OSA23]

01:25 PM on 01/17/2009

exactly what story were you reading edub1991 when you thought you were reading alan moore's and dave gibbons' 'watchmen'...?

because your useless and therefore throwaway comment about the ending sucking seems to indicate that you are not a reader at all but someone who likes to be led around by the nose ring versus appreciating the overall IRONY of moore's vision.....

your comment jumped at me because i was reminded of a comment made by uberwriter grant morrison in an interview - that a culture that refuses to comprehend metaphors represents a culture destined to fail. your comment reminded me how too many people need for all of the pieces to 'make sense' for them to feel like they experienced something soooo profoundly great, when in actuality they only experienced schlock in the name of 'art', or 'cinema', or 'music'.....

the entire 'watchmen' works from start to finish, and if you need some 'perfect' ending then perhaps you need to read more books that offer you predictable tripe that goes no where, and keeps your mentally occluded from understanding how subtle life has always (and shall always remain...) been.

[Lochmon]

11:59 AM on 01/17/2009

Very good! I've waited 20 years for this movie.

www.watchmenmovie.com

The Production Diaries are worth checking out.

[chromodynamics]

05:21 AM on 01/17/2009

Yes there is a god!

...and he's an American name Dr. Manhattan.

[pjlowry]

12:33 AM on 01/17/2009

Fans were already talking about boycotting Fox's summer films (especially Wolverine) if the Watchmen was delayed... so it was in their best interest to get this settled. Nice to see them get it take care of. Now we can all see the movie come out as scheduled! :)

[MissElaineous]

06:03 PM on 01/16/2009

Doing my Fangirl Happy Dance!

[BobQueuePublic]

02:05 PM on 01/16/2009

Okay. Im 50 years old and not a comic fanboy. But I did read and love the graphic novel (series, compiled trade paperback, whatever). The only complaint I've got is that Owlman doesn't have a beer gut, and I'm a little worried about Dr. Manhattan's CGI looking about as fake as last summer's Hulk movie (whih I did't see, because the trailers looked so fake).

Most importantly--much more than the production quality--is that the writing and editing are done well to tell a story equal to the original. That's all I had to say and a little more (like hte age disclosure?!) My 2 cents are officially spent.

[getoffthecross]

02:57 PM on 01/16/2009

Pictures of the actor without the costume show him to have a paunch. And the Hulk movie wasn't too bad, especially if you were a fan of the TV series at all.

My fear is all about the end. Not the squid (which doesn't bother me one way or the other), but Rorshach's journal. That open-ended, could-the-whole-plan-collapse feeling that, to me, spoke for the whole story and pulled it all together. I've seen plenty to know that there's plenty I'm going to enjoy as a fan of the book (I actually bought the original 12 comics as they came out back in 1986, and have probably read it all the way through at least 20 times), but if they make at neat, Hollywood ending, I'm going to feel hosed.

[cdub1991]

04:34 PM on 01/16/2009

I saw the first trailer during the Dark Knight movie. The friend who was with me said, "looks like just another superhero movie to me." Having read the first run way back when, I'm looking forward to it, but I'm afraid that it may not get much of a chance from the general public, who won't know what to make of it. It would be a shame if it bombed because of that. Parents are going to try to take their little kids to it (what's the rating?) and are going to be shocked and "outraged."

And for once, I TRULY hope they change the ending and come up with something better. The original blew.

[jkb77]

06:46 PM on 01/16/2009

The original ending blew? Are you kidding me?

[getoffthecross]

01:40 PM on 01/16/2009

So much for the curse of the Dark Wizard.

Here's my question, with everything going on in the Middle East and Russia and the economy and all of it...where's our clock stand right now?

[cdub1991]

04:27 PM on 01/16/2009

5 minutes to midnight.

[Clavis]

11:46 AM on 01/16/2009

This better not suck.

[Xgal08]

11:46 AM on 01/16/2009

Great news! I'm looking forward to this film!

[Progress08]

10:30 AM on 01/16/2009

Cool. This thing heralded the "Modern" comic with dark strorylines and deeply flawed superheroes.

[Grulg]

04:43 AM on 01/16/2009

Yayyyyyyyyyy. Another 300 style flick will come out, fans will love it, or boo, or whatever. Others will go-what was THAT about -?!

[dbushik]

01:03 PM on 01/16/2009

Kind of, but not really. Watchmen isn't a "300 style" flick. This one is about a lot more than just oiled up muscles. 300 was a success as a comic mainly based on the art, not the story. That is not at all the case with Watchmen. You're probably right about the fan-boy reaction, but there is immeasurably more substance to this piece than that hunk-o-junk 300 for non-fans to appreciate. It got a Hugo.

[WRPrintz]

01:58 AM on 01/16/2009

This is one of the great comic book stories, and actually, flat out great Science Fiction stories of the 20th Century. Alan Moore is a master who's rarely matched in the field.

However, the movies of his films.....have not been so lucky. From Hell. League of Extraordinary Gentelmen. Very sad really.

[KeyWestDan]

12:06 PM on 01/16/2009

Take heart that director Zack Snyder really put his all into this film, and thoroughly tried to stay true Alan Moore's vision, (unlike other directors who just wanted to make a buck, producing a pale shadow of Moore's original concept.)

Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons, who was invited on set, will attest to the quality of the film.

As a Watchmen fan, I believe if this isn't the real deal, then no other director will ever have a shot.

I remain optimistic.

[KeyWestDan]

01:58 PM on 01/16/2009

Take heart that director Zack Snyder really put his all into this film, and thoroughly tried to stay true Alan Moore's vision, (unlike other directors who just wanted to make a few dollars, producing a pale shadow of Moore's original concept.)
Watchmen artist, Dave Gibbons, who was invited on set, will attest to the quality of the film.
As a Watchmen fan, I believe if this isn't the real deal, then no other director will ever have a shot.
I remain optimistic.

[Aaron Gaudio]

12:54 AM on 01/16/2009

W00t! And nobody had to blow up a city!

[lynjs]

11:28 PM on 01/15/2009

Neither had a choice. If they both had continued to act a fool and stall the release, fans might have revolted and not bothered to go out to see the big budgets coming out in the coming months afterward.

This climate is not right to screw over the public. Economic hardtimes will make people pick and choose which movies that they go to see. Fans, no matter how much they want to see something, they'll stay home on principle. They couldn't chance that.

[ramblingjohnny]

06:02 AM on 01/16/2009

Not to mention that every day a completed movie is sitting on a shelve is increasing the risk of that movie ending up on the Tump Drive of some studio employee who just leak it all over the net. This is why I really did not understand WB decision of delaying the release the next Harry Potter for six months. This is playing with fire and I expect somebody is going to get burn sooner or later.