Fox sues over rights to The Watchmen

Its been relatively quiet on the movie rights lawsuit front, so lets jump right into one going on right now. The Hollywood Reporter has a story that Fox is a little upset at Warner Brothers. Fox claims that between 1986 and 1990, it acquired all rights to The Watchmen, some of which were distributed to Largo International with the understanding that at the end of the day, Fox still held the rights. Largo dismantled, so the rights from that went to producer Lawrence Gordon, with the stipulation that Fox could be "bought out" if the movie went to another firm. Well now Warner Brothers is picking up the tab, and no one asked Fox. So Fox is suing for unspecified damages. You have to wonder why now. The film has been in development for close to a year now. I don't think Fox has any intense investment in the film (they've had the rights for close to 20 years and have yet to do anything with them). And Warner Brothers is kind of everything DC Comics (which originally published The Watchmen), so its all kind of suspect. But I guess Fox just wants a piece of the financial pie regardless, and if they're not going to make the movie, they'd be just as happy suing the studio that is making the movie. Fox suing over The Watchmen