It’s a bad day to be a geek, and a great day to be a greedy, goddamned lawyer. Earlier today we heard that New Line’s upcoming movie version of The Hobbit may be sidelined by lawsuits, and now it looks like the currently filming big screen version of Watchmen may suffer a similar fate.

HR says that Warner Brothers, the studio behind Zack Snyder’s Watchmen adaptation, is being dragged into a legal battle by 20th Century Fox. At issue is the WB’s right to “develop, produce, and distribute” a film based on the graphic novel “Watchmen”. In other words, Fox wants to stop them from making it, and they’re willing to throw a bunch of guys in suits at them in order to screw the movie over.

The movie is already being shot, so it might seem a little late for this sort of action, right? Wrong. Zack Snyder may indeed finish Watchmen, but imagine a world in which a finished version of Watchmen sits in a vault somewhere, locked away from the public by studio lawyers. If Fox has its way, you will never see the finished product.

Fox claims that in the late-80s and early 90s they acquired all movie rights to the comic series. From there their claim gets confusing and fuzzy, and it’s probably not worth your time to muddle through. The long and short of it is that Fox thinks Watchmen belongs to them, and they want to stop you from every seeing the version currently made. Which of course begs the question… why didn’t they do something about this sooner? I have no idea if their claim is actually valid, but you’d think if it was they might have done something about it before Zack Snyder actually started shooting it.

One thing is for certain: Unless this is settled quickly the only winner her is Fox executives looking to screw over their competition by denying them a tentpole flick. It’s no coincidence that it’s The Hobbit and Watchmen, easily the two most anticipated upcoming movies, which are mired down in lawyer maneuvering. They’re not only heavily anticipated, they’ll also probably end up being immensely profitable. Everybody wants a piece of the action… or else. The rich get richer and the fans get screwed.

http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Fox-Wants-To-Stop-You-From-Watching-The-Watchmen-7793.html