A Little Push - Thoughts on the Hollywood Machine 12.27.08

Posted by Rick Tym on 12.27.2008

Watchmen legal issues, SAG strike update and thoughts, Oscar voting, Dark Knight cultural issues and more in the latest Little Push, along with preemptive wishes for a Happy New Year!

Will We Be Watching Watchmen?

Ahh…studio execs. The wiliest of the wily, unless you count Wile E. Coyote.

Oh, wait. He wasn't nearly as good at his job as the higher-ups of the Hollywood Machine. But hopefully he didn't have to pull some shady distribution rights shenanigans to pay off his tab with the ACME Corporation.

On December 24th, 2008 quite the bomb dropped on Zack Snyder and Warner Bros. with regards to an upcoming March 6th 2009 release you may have heard about—the one with a big blue nuclear dude, a confirmed psycho with a shifting inkblot mask, a forty-year-old who dresses like an owl, a skimpily-clothed woman whose last name is planetary, and the World's Smartest Man, among others. (Their buddy, known on the rough-and-tumble Manhattan streets as "The Squid," was not available for comment at press time.) It seems as though a Los Angeles judge ruled in favor of 20th Century Fox, stating that the studio owns "a copyright interest consisting of, at the very least, the right to distribute the ‘Watchmen' motion picture ."

A brief history of Fox litigation over the past two decades or so goes a little something like this (cue the music): the studio bought the rights to the Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons graphic novel in 1986 through producer Lawrence Gordon. They then sat on it or simply failed to produce anything of value based on the property and placed the project in turnaround—a not-so-elaborate term which indicates the selling of rights from one studio to another—but to this day maintain that a separate 1991 deal transferred some of the Watchmen rights to Gordon and still gave them distribution and sequel rights along with profit shares should the adaptation be made by another studio. Old development bills amounting to approximately $1 million would also need to be reimbursed to Fox upon Gordon's attaining full rights to the property. Other back-lot dealings included Fox having first option on participation should the producer change any key creative personnel on the film (a "changed elements" clause).

Does your head hurt? Mine does.



20th Century Fox will look up and shout "save us!"…and I'll look down, and whisper "f&#k off."
The project passed through several studios before landing on the doorstep of Warner Bros. in 2005. 20th Century Fox said that they contacted Warner at that time and informed them of the 1991 and 1994 deals with Lawrence Gordon. Warner Bros. said that Fox never picked up the phone or sent a suit over to chat, stating that they were initially unaware of the deals in place between Fox and Gordon. The big WB also claimed that the 1994 deal was inapplicable as it did not cover distribution rights and in fact conferred to Gordon all amenities needed to make a Watchmen movie.

If it sounds like a lot of "he said, she said" and you make Warner the butch and 20th Century Fox the bitch, well…you wouldn't be far off.

An appeal from Warner was rejected in August of 2008 and plans were made for the case to begin in January of 2009. Somehow, the L.A. judge (Gary A. Feess) mentioned at the onset of this article circumvented this start date and on Christmas Eve ruled in favor of Fox, granting the studio's claim to copyright interest in the film. So here we are back where we started, here we go ‘round again.



Will Ozy and his hybrid kitty give their ticket money to 20th Century Fox or Warner Bros.?
Perhaps the biggest question on everyone's mind is "Will we be watching Watchmen come May 2009?" The Push believes that the answer is unequivocally yes. Too much nerd interest has run rampant around the internet, comic book conventions and general everyday funny book debate for the film to be put back in the can and shelved. Even more so than the built-in geek audience who will go to see the film four to fifteen times (whether it be to enjoy the experience or jot down inconsistencies in their notebooks with a flashlight pen for use as ammunition in the latest forum flame war) there is the general movie-going public, who has heard a lot about that nuclear blue dude mentioned above and the possible neglect of a large piece of calamari and will buy their tickets out of curiosity, hoping for the next Dark Knight or perhaps at least something on par with (but hopefully—please, God—better than) 300, the CGI wonder that got Snyder the Watchmen gig in the first place. This will not affect the populace intending to see the film in the spring of 2009—except for in their wallets.

No, the real interest in this ruling and therefore this story lies with the studios, 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros. If Fox has all their I's dotted and their T's crossed, then Warner is gonna have a hell of a hard time fighting the injunction. Zack Snyder has publicly said that no one anywhere ever tried to interfere in the production. Warner says that they never knew, and no one ever reminded them even if they once did. The question remains: why would Fox not try harder to stop the production from moving forward if the studio had a legitimate claim to the film's rights?

Even though no quibble will be made should all of Fox's ducks be in a row when it comes to fact checking and proving time, the Push will say that if the evidence holds up in court, then Fox will have pulled off one of the shadiest moves in recent Hollywood memory. Fox had—and now that the film is near completion, the verb changes to the present tense of "has"—a vested interest in not saying too much, because that would be shooting themselves in the foot with their mouths. There's simply no reason for Fox to have bellyached about the Warner Bros. film up until this point. They sold the rights in the first place, remember? But man, they sure took the idea of "back door" to new heights when it comes to shitty studio deals. Specifics about Lawrence Gordon, his history with Fox and subsequent dealings with other studios are not well-known to A Little Push—not because of a lack of interest but simply because it's the Friday after Christmas, there are still gifts to transport and family and friends to visit, and Google and Wikipedia take a backseat when time must be parceled out more responsibly than usual—but Fox wasn't able to do jack shit with the source material, even after plugging a whopping one million dollars into its development. (See how I pushed the sarcasm button there?) Round and round went the Watchmen until Warner finally decided to take a stab at it with Zack Snyder at the helm. All jokes about 300 aside (and the above comment really was a joke—the movie is fun and gorgeous-looking, CGI or no CGI, to boot) Warner and presumably DC saw something they liked in the man enough to give him the job of translating the best comic book ever (not exaggerating, so don't make me reference Time magazine's top 100 novels list again—oh wait, I just did) to the big screen, and the man maintains innocence with a basic "I didn't know nuthin'" press blurb. Can you blame him? The Push can't—if I was tasked to direct an adaptation of Little Red Riding Hood (and come to think of it, that wouldn't be a bad gig at all if one were allowed to make it more Brothers Grimm than Disney fairy tale) I wouldn't say boo to a ghost once things were rolling. Besides, the biggest and most obvious statement that could be made about this is probably the one that would earn the most "yeah right, get real" reactions: it's not his job.

Ridiculous or not, it's the truth: it's not his job. Go ahead, repeat it thirty times ala Robin Williams and Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting—the tears and self-forgiveness will start to flow like wine. We'll wait.

You see, that's the biggest problem with the whole story—sure, 20th Century Fox is comprised of a bunch of shifty corporate bastards, but if they win the lawsuit they'll be a bunch of rich shifty greedy bastards. As much as I hate to admit it—once again with the disclaimer that all of this is predicated on their claims and backup information being 100% legit—they will have sneakily earned the rights to distribute. It doesn't matter if Warner Bros. pitches a tantrum like a two-year-old, backs on the floor and legs and arms flailing in the wind. All it would take it one or two legalese lines in a contract the size of War and Peace and as a certain chef would say "Bam!" Warner Bros. is out of the picture. Should this December 24th ruling not be overturned, that's where the real fault lies—not with Zack Snyder, who was only living out a director's dream, and not with Fox, who kept their eye on the ball for over two decades, but with Warner Bros., who may have committed the huge crime of assumption when deciding to move ahead in 2005 before making sure the legal path was clear along with the roads of budget and creativity. The problem now will be with the appeals process, because there's no way the studio will go quietly into the night—not after all the production and marketing costs, certainly not before they get the chance to grab the brass ring once more after the success of The Dark Knight.

For now I stand by my prediction that Watchmen will still be released on the ninth of next March. As an op-ed columnist dealing with movie and television hoo-ha my interest level on the legal side of things is a given. But more importantly, I write about these things because I am a fan and have been looking forward to this film for a long, long time. I want to sit here with everyone and discuss the moral ambiguities and social implications in the finished work and how they parallel the source material. I do not want to become an entertainment lawyer. However, everyone knows that the dollar, more so than creative drive or "visionary directors," is the real oil of the Hollywood Machine. I pray and hope too much has been invested and that one side or the other wins in January and we'll have to turn to the legal section of Variety to get the specifics on who settled and for how much. Should the eyes be crossed rather than dotted and the tees ripped rather than…well…crossed, then my prediction may come back, bite me in the ass and tell me that we'll all have to wait and perhaps unwillingly become a little more conversant on the subject of the scales of justice and just how calibrated they are in sunny California.

Is the Screen Actors Guild Backing Off?

The Push now continues along the lines of legal issues with the latest on the feared Screen Actors Guild strike that hovers over the Hollywood sign. An emergency meeting scheduled for January 12th and 13th originates from the concerns of SAG national executive director Doug Allen and president Alan Rosenberg, who want the time to wrangle the seventy-plus members of the board into voting for a strike authorization. This comes after a meeting between the two with a group of five SAG board seat members who call themselves the Unite for Strength faction—not as snappy a moniker as the Justice League but whaddya want, they're probably your typical stuffy executive "bored" member-types—who are more than a little reluctant to move ahead with a vote to strike, citing some big players in the Hollywood game who are against the authorization such as George Clooney and Tom Hanks.


Which symbol do you prefer?
Seventy-five percent of SAG board members need to approve the authorization to vote, and A Little Push strongly and happily sides with the likes of Clooney and Hanks in this matter. Once again, not wanting to be an entertainment lawyer, I am not privy to the exclusives of the current SAG/Hollywood Machine arrangement or what bargaining chips are on the table in terms of percentages and likeness rights, but the economy is in the toilet right now and actors' salaries can probably still be considered commensurate with current market conditions, let alone prior work experience. (Techies, boom mike holders and other laymen and women are not included in this argument—it's the Screen Actors Guild, people, and the official SAG eligibility check web page states that performers are eligible for membership after working in a SAG film in a principle role.) I will not "blast" the Guild as La-la Land studios are but will say that it would be in everyone's best interests to shelve the notion of striking and continue working. Hey, gas is down below two bucks a gallon here in the northeast; don't screw up, SAG members, and take that potential extra cash that would've gone from my pocket to your mouths away from yourselves because you want to emulate 20th Century Fox and their wiliness!

Oscar Ballots Are Coming Have Gone Out

The Academy gave voting members their Christmas gift a day late. Oscar ballots went out to the 5,810 casting their noms for nods this year on Friday December 26th and are due back to accounting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers by January 12th at 5 p.m. Pacific. Nominations are scheduled for announcement January 22nd with the Academy Awards ceremony taking place on February 22nd at the Kodak Theater.
Just a quick blurb to let everyone know that gold statue efforts are proceeding on schedule, along with an excuse to present you with yet another "for your consideration" promotional piece pertaining to The Dark Knight…



A Little Push has not yet been able to check the origins or studio legitimacy of the above promotional image—i.e., it may be bona fide studio material or a creation of some fan's bootleg copy of Photoshop—but as with all that's been seen lately with regards to Oscar vote-garnering materials concerning one of 2007's best movies, thumbs up for yet another great Oscar vote-baiting piece!

But They Won't Be Voting for Anything Dark Knight-ish in China

Warner Bros. has decided not to screen their batty blockbuster for our friends in the East, citing possible cultural sensitivity issues. While China has emerged over the past few years as a highly desirable market due to the increase of the middle class demographic and a rise in the number of theatrical multiplexes, there are still some worries over what may offend audiences in the country. Furthermore, Hong Kong is featured predominantly in a portion of the film and difficulties may have been apparent in Chinese censors' approval of the film's release there because of the footage.



So you'll need a copy of the DVD? That's very good, Mr. Lau.
Of course the real reason for deciding not to release The Dark Knight in China is the expected lackluster ticket sales; everyone there will be too busy checking their business building's lobby security desks for left-behind cell phones and keeping their eyes on the skies so a 747 with a hook on the front of it doesn't buzz city skylines, thus indicating another illegal extradition of one of their own. I kid, I kid! I understand not wanting to upset a potentially lucrative overseas market's government, but feel for those in China that are jonesing for their Batman fix. Hopefully those people can wait for and enjoy the DVD, and next time around—you know, when Jim Carrey reprises his role as the Riddler alongside Johnny Depp replacing Heath Ledger as the Joker and Angelina Jolie is Catwoman employed by Phillip Seymour Hoffman's international arms dealer who is known on the streets of Gotham as the Penguin…well, that joke is balancing precariously on the precipice of ridiculousness, but you get the idea. Next go around, no Hong Kong skyline in the Batman film = happy Chinese audiences.

Outtro

Hopefully everyone had a great Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza or just a few nice days off from work if holiday celebration isn't your thing. If you're of the inclination and made a trip to the theater on the 25th, either to see something serious or simply some light family fare, here's a toast to the price of admission being worth the minor budgetary hit—at least, in comparison to the spending that may have been done on all those wonderful toys. Mostly, A Little Push hopes that everyone out there is safe and happy as we make our way towards 2009. For everyone that read through some of the admittedly "dry" stuff above, thanks for plugging away and maybe realizing that some important things are already happening that could shape the next year of entertainment and therefore determine a little of our attention as we prepare for what may come our way in two-double-naught-nine.

(Plus it was Christmas week, and news ranged from "slow" to "non-existent." I will gladly take your readership, patience and understanding as a late Christmas gift, as I do celebrate the arrival of the tubby guy in the red and white velvety get-up.)

For now, though, let all that %$@^ be forgotten. Keep the spirit (and spirits—but not Frank Miller'sThe Spirit, I heard that it stunk) flowing throughout this weekend and catch up with everybody you missed on Christmas Eve and Day—remember, chances are you didn't and couldn't get to everybody in one or two short days. That's what the rest of this weekend and another holiday or two next week are for.



The "I" in the equation isn't just for myself at the Push or its readers, but for everyone out there who comes here to 411mania.com to enjoy the company the site provides. To you and yours, a Healthy and Happy New Year. See you next time, in 2009.