WATCHMEN MOVIE: Fox watches the Watchmen.

This whole thing with Twentieth Century Fox getting the green light to go ahead with their law suit against Warner Bros. over movie rights to the DC comics Watchmen franchise is areal mess.

The actual suit was filed back in February when it was not seen as such abig deal, but with a Los Angeles judge now ruling that there are enough grounds for Fox to at least proceed with the suit, well now people are starting to take notice. Fox claims that its rights to the movie rights in the 1980s are still intact because they made some later claim to said rights in 1991 (I dont really understand that stuff either).

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Watchmen is now in the can and in final editing for its March 2009 release. Throw in the fact that the hype machine is already in gear, with heavy promotion for the film being carried out at the recent San Diego Comic con this past July and you have the makings of one very ugly PR war heading into the holiday season. I don't think that these two studios will be exchanging Christmas cards this year.

I am curious to see if this is just going to turn into a quick and easy cash grab by Fox or if they will be sticking to their guns and trying to really block the release of the movie, and I am curious if Warners will find some loophole that lets them go ahead and release the film even if they lose the lawsuit.

Ahh, comic book movie soap operas, a rare bird indeed...