The business behind The Watchmen

Comic superhero flick the Watchmen, which premiered this week in London, is one of the most anticipated films in years and should also be one of the most lucrative. But the film’s success was sealed off-set.

Like Cloverfield and the Dark Knight before it, box office receipts for The Watchmen will be inflated by events leading up to the film’s release. In Cloverfield’s case it was a clever marketing campaign, in the Dark Knight’s it was the untimely death of Joker actor Heath Ledger.

But The Watchmen will enjoy a few more bums on seats thanks to a high profile court case between Warner Bros, the studio behind the film, and Twentieth Century Fox, who claim the original distribution rights.

Fox acquired the rights way back in 1986, soon after the original comic book series was first published. But producer Larry Gordon grew impatient when successive directors, including the great Terry Gilliam, failed to get the film off the ground.

The Comic’s intricate story line flummoxed them. Having called it day, Gillingham labelled The Watchmen “unfilmable”, but that didn’t stop big name actors such as Tom Cruise and Arnold Schwarzenegger being linked to parts.

Gordon took the film to Universal and Paramount before Warner Bros got a crack at it. They handed the job to Zack Snyder, the young and visionary director of “300”. He finished the film, albeit over-long at 157 minutes (down from over three hours originally), in February last year.

That’s when Fox filed the law suit. Nearly a year of legal to-ing and fro-ing later, plus thousands of newspaper column inches dedicated to the case, and the two houses came to an amicable agreement.

Everyone knew this would be the upshot, neither studio would be stupid enough to prevent a big film being released for the sake of pride (especially in a recession). Under the deal Fox gets a lump sum for waiving its rights, plus a cut of sequels and spin-offs.

More importantly, the case has turned the film from a niche geek flick into box office alchemy of X-Men proportions. It may turn out to be the biggest film of the year. The legal drama allowed marketing to start earlier than usual and sales of comic books and related paraphernalia have soared.

Throw in a big social media campaign, in the UK led by the Picture Production Company (PPC), and you have the ingredients for an absolute smash.

The world premier took place in London on Monday and the public get to see it in just over a week. Early reviews suggest it is visually stunning although the translation from comic to film is not as smooth as modern classics such as Batman, Iron Man and the X-men.   

But with the cult of business media so firmly behind the film, who cares about the critics?

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By Dan Matthews  on   Feb 25,2009

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Keywords

film    director    legal    lawsuit    solicitor    media    internet   

Comments

Charles OJ
There's another crucial angle: the dispute between Northampton's most famous resident and world's greatest ever graphic novellist and creator of Watchmen, Allan Moore, and the production team. Moore had this to say: "I find film in its modern form to be quite bullying. It spoon-feeds us, which has the effect of watering down our collective cultural imagination. It is as if we are freshly hatched birds looking up with our mouths open waiting for Hollywood to feed us more regurgitated worms. The 'Watchmen' film sounds like more regurgitated worms. I for one am sick of worms. Can't we get something else? Perhaps some takeout? Even Chinese worms would be a nice change." And following the decades of problems besetting the film he added this: "Will the film even be coming out? There are these legal problems now, which I find wonderfully ironic. Perhaps it's been cursed from afar, from England. And I can tell you that I will also be spitting venom all over it for months to come." With this sort of hype it's not just film nerds and Comic Store guys who are salivating. Personally I can't wait. Report Abuse

Brian
Terry Gillian.
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Ed
Good spot Brian
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Charles OJ
No, it's Gilliam. M. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Gilliam
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