Yearly Archive: 2008

The eagerly awaited trial pitting 20th Century Fox against Warner Bros. over The Watchmen has been delayed from January 6 to January 20, according to Variety. On Monday, Judge Gary Allen Feess declined to “issue a ruling on whether Fox or Warner Bros. controls the rights to the project.”

The delay is a result of the judge having a criminal matter also scheduled for the 6th, which takes precedence over Hollywood behemoths. He declined both sides’ request for summary judgment regarding the rights, saying, “the contracts between Fox and Watchmen producer Larry Gordon are so open to interpretation that a trial is required.”

Warner insists the movie will still open, as scheduled, on March 6.

Watchmen has had a complicated history from when the rights were first sold to Fox in 1986.  The rights have been with Warners once before, when Joel Silver and Terry Gilliam were attached to produce and direct, respectively.  Universal had the rights for what seem like 15 minutes where they had David Hayter write a draft of the script.  Creator Alan Moore praised this draft saying it was, “as close as I could imagine anyone getting to Watchmen.”  The Hayter draft was the basis for the version that was eventually filmed.  After Universal the project went to Paramount, who dropped the project because of budget issues as management changed from Sherry Lansing to Brad Grey.  Paramount has received the international distribution rights in exchange for their turnaround rights.

The issue of contention comes from an agreement between Fox and producer Lawrence Gordon.  Gordon has been attached to the project since it’s inception and when his company, Largo International, dissolved he purchased the rights from Fox and moved it around until the film found it’s final home with Warner, parent company to DC Comics which published the maxiseries in the first place.  Fox contends that their deal with Gordon required him to resubmit the film to Fox every time there was a changed element.  In this context "element" can mean anything from a new subplot to a new starring actor.  Fox says that Gordon’s failure to do this when the project moved to Warner and acquired director Zack Snyder means that they retain some of the rights to make this film.

Fox said they spent in excess of $1 million in developing the film before giving up and Gordon has said he has paid nearly $400,000 to Fox to settle that debt.

Warner contends that they have settled all the rights issues through their settlement with Paramount, the previous rights holder.  They dispute that Fox has any claim on the property at all.

Fox’s suit, filed in February, contends that it retains distribution rights to the graphic novel penned by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons. It asserts that Gordon’s option to acquire Fox’s remaining interest in "Watchmen" was never exercised, thereby leaving Fox with its rights under a 1994 turnaround agreement.

Lost amidst DC Comics’ latest round of solicitations is a historic reprint collection of one of its seminal works: DC Comics Classics Library: Roots of the Swamp Thing. And it’s historic not because it represents the first hardback compilation of the material but because the story is being published in its entirety for the first time ever.
 
Upon her arrival at DC Comics in 1976, Jeanette Kahn made no secret of her disdain for the company’s sampler-style use of reprints in the years prior to her arrival. Instead, she wanted to see specific fan-favorite storylines compiled in a single volume or series. So 1977 saw the release of four key Ra’s al Ghul stories in the tabloid-sized Limited Collectors’ Edition #C-51 and the beginning of an irregularly-published set of one-shots called the Original Swamp Thing Saga (appearing in DC Special Series #2, 14, 17 and 20) that ultimately reprinted Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson’s Swamp Thing #1-10 from 1972-1974.
 
The years passed and collections of specific stories grew to become the industry standard, evolving from the newsprint of these formative examples to much nicer grades of paper and from the traditional pamphlet-type package to paperbacks and hardcovers. There was a tendency, however, to favorite the art over the scripts in many of these early (and not-so-early) collections.
 
When Steve Englehart’s landmark eight-part Batman opus from Detective Comics from 1977 was reprinted (first in 1985/1986 and again in 1999), the impact of his last chapter was blunted a bit by the fact that the Len Wein-scripted Clayface III follow-up was attached by virtue of the fact that it had also been penciled by Marshall Rogers. Conversely, Wein’s own run has only ever been reprinted up to Swamp Thing #10–because that’s the point when artist Bernie Wrightson left the book. Problem is, Len continued to write Swamp Thing for another three issues, ably abetted by artist Nestor Redondo. More significantly, he carried the themes from issue #1 (and specifically the tragic creature’s relationship to his pursuers Matt Cable and Abby Arcane) to a touching, satisfying conclusion in #13.
 
Unfortunately, the fan without access to the original issues has never read it. The first ten issues (along with the prototype story from House of Secrets #92) were gathered again on much nicer paper in 1986’s Roots of the Swamp Thing #1-5 before going the trade paperback route with Swamp Thing: Dark Genesis in 1992. And most recently in the digest-sized Secret of the Swamp Thing (2005). [Meantime, the pre-series short story from House of Secrets #92 is now one of the ten most-reprinted stories in DC’s history, with–to date–ten reprintings compared to Swamp Thing #1’s five.]
 

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While we’re inundated with good, classic and fairly crappy Christmas specials, we here at ComicMix take note of what we think may be the first holiday special surrounding Three Kings Day, a.k.a Little Christmas, of the day when the three kings arrive to see the newborn baby.

Nickelodeon will air its Dora Saves Three Kings Day, on Tuesday, January 6, at 8 p.m.  We’re not sure how Dora the Explorer will accomplish this miracle but Nick wants to make sure we’re all aware of the impending event with the following planned:

•    A two-minute sneak peek at the episode and clips from a song from the show, along with additional episodes, will stream on Nick Jr. Video from Monday, December 29.  The entire episode will be available on Nickjr.com from January 7.

•    The two-minute sneak peek, song and episode clips from the episode will be available on various wireless carriers also from December 29.

•    Nickelodeon on Demand will offer a sneak peek, shorts and song clips from the episode, as well as additional Dora episodes Throughout January.