Now that the strike is (unofficially) over, Hollywood can finally move on and get to work… business as usual. Right?

Not quite.

This week alone, Hollywood studios have been slapped with THREE humongous lawsuits (more like 2 big ones and one mediocre, but publicity-worthy).

First up is New Line Cinema, which has barely settled their lawsuit with director Peter Jackson mere weeks ago over the Lord of the Rings trilogy (he sued New Line because he claimed they weren’t giving him all the back-end points they agreed on) and is now facing a pseudo-shut down as it may be possibly folded into its parent company Warner Bros (folded meaning everything belonging to New Line will become WB property and the New Line name will be dropped). Now the estate of Rings creator J.R.R. Tolkien is suing New Line because they’re claiming they haven’t received ANY profit-participation money from the trilogy, which grossed almost $3 billion worldwide.

Second: Jew-hating Mel Gibson is being sued by his own writer, Benedict Fitzgerald, who wrote the screenplay for The Passion of the Christ. Fizgerald is claiming that Gibson had made him take a lower wage and less profit points on The Passion because it was going to be a low-budget picture. This lawsuit may go by the wayside, as I think it’ll turn out to simply be a matter of the writer wanting more money because the movie turned out to be a bigger hit than anyone expected.

Now for the one that may cause some serious problems for a movie that’s not even finished yet: 20th Century Fox is suing Warner Bros. over the rights to the upcoming comic adaptation Watchmen (directed by 300’s Zack Snyder). Fox is claiming that they have the exclusive distribution rights for Watchmen, which is currently being produced (and slated for distribution) by WB. Fox claims they had ALL movie rights to Watchmen in the early 90s but (for some reason) gave all but the distribution rights up.

What doesn’t make sense in this lawsuit (for me at least) is that the Watchmen comic book is a DC Comics property… and DC Comics is owned by Warner Bros. Since the beginning of time, only WB has produced (and distributed) movies based on DC books, so what doesn’t make sense to me is why Fox would have the rights to Watchmen.

Posted on February 12th, 2008 by Enrique
Filed under: Opinion, Politics, WGA Strike