Caffeinated Clint
Warner Bros. has asked a federal judge to speed up his decision on whether to grant Fox’s request to block the release of “Watchmen” on March 6.
The WB, understandably, don’t want to piss away marketing and promotion plans valued at $150 million if Rothman’s crew are just going to clock-block the release.
“Because the release date for ‘Watchmen’ is less than two months away and Warner Bros. must imminently commit to spending tens of millions of dollars on its marketing and promotional campaign for the picture, time is of the essence,” Warner said.
Meanwhile, “Watchmen” producer Lloyd Levin has dropped HitFix (the new home of former AICN writer Drew McWeeny) a line regarding the situation.
Among said words, Levin mentions how amusing the situation is – that ”After all these years of rejection, this is the same project, the same movie, over which two studios are now spending millions of dollars contesting ownership. Irony indeed, and then some.”
He continues, “From my point of view, the flashpoint of this dispute, came in late spring of 2005. Both Fox and Warner Brothers were offered the chance to make Watchmen. They were submitted the same package, at the same time. It included a cover letter describing the project and its history, budget information, a screenplay, the graphic novel, and it made mention that a top director was involved.
”And it’s at this point, where the response from both parties could not have been more radically different. The response we got from Fox was a flat “pass.” That’s it. An internal Fox email documents that executives there felt the script was one of the most unintelligible pieces of shit they had read in years. Conversely, Warner Brothers called us after having read the script and said they were interested in the movie – yes, they were unsure of the screenplay, and had many questions, but wanted to set a meeting to discuss the project, which they promptly did. Did anyone at Fox ask to meet on the movie? No. Did anyone at Fox express any interest in the movie? No. Express even the slightest interest in the movie? Or the graphic novel? No.”
But, of course, Fox didn’t have little movies like “Hitman”, “Max Payne”, “The X-Files : I Want to Believe” and “The Happening” as stable fixtures either back then. Someone’s got to pay the mortgage on the “Die Hard” building – and that might just be Warner.
