Watchmen producer Lloyd Levin has written an “open letter” on the movie’s current legal woes, in which he essentially tries to claim the moral high ground for Warner Brothers. Levin, whose letter was published at Hitfix, certainly succeeds at making Warner sound like a more adventurous studio than Fox, and a better place to pursue a project of this nature — but none of that is relevant to the legal issues currently facing this movie, is it?
David Poland, for one, is not impressed. And one of the interesting points he makes is that it was Fox, not Warner, that kick-started the current comic-book craze by getting a director with a short and spotty résumé to make the first X-Men movie nine whole years ago. (The director in question, of course, was Bryan Singer, who at that time had only two independent films, i.e. Public Access and The Usual Suspects, and a major-studio flop, i.e. Apt Pupil, to his name.) So it’s not like adventurous forays into the comic-book genre are all that foreign to Fox.
Personally, I don’t care who distributes the movie, just so long as we all get to see it. But if Fox succeeds in thwarting every fanboy’s dream of seeing this story on the big screen, then it will be interesting to see what sort of backlash there is, if any. I have heard vague rumours of a possible boycott against X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which is being distributed by Fox just like all the other X-Men movies, but I have no idea how seriously I should take those rumours. Still, it would make a certain sense.
Oh, and this just in: The Hollywood Reporter reports that fellow producer Larry Gordon has written a letter, too, except his letter is addressed to Gary Feess, the judge presiding over the case — and Feess has refused to read it, calling it an “improper communication” in violation of court rules.
And so the drama continues.
JAN 9 UPDATE: The Hollywood Reporter has a copy of Gordon’s letter to the judge, as well as an Associated Press story which indicates that Fox and Warner now want Feess to delay a hearing because they have been having “fruitful settlement talks” since last weekend. Warner, you might recall, was asking Feess only a few days ago to move the January 20 trial up to this Monday.
JAN 10 UPDATE: The New York Times adds its own two bits.
JAN 11 UPDATE: And now Variety chimes in.
JAN 12 UPDATE: The Hollywood Reporter says the studios are “close” to a settlement. Michael Cieply also notes that the heads of the two studios — Fox’s Tom Rothman and Warner’s Alan Horn — were looking awfully chummy at the Golden Globes last night.
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