Friday, January 9, 2009
Maybe I'm getting really cynical in my old age, but I feel that every day the patina of law and order is peeled back further in this country. Those who know me in RL know of the legal problem I've had in the past that make me feel that too often the laws of this country are just "formally" arbitrary and easily used to crush the smallest of us.
I'm not alone in this...I've been reading online comments in regards to the poor man shot in the back WHILE HANDCUFFED around New Years, and the overwhelming consensus is that the police involved will undergo a long investigation and let go without any punishment.
In a different injustice, consider this letter by Lloyd Levin, one of the producers of the Watchmen, about Fox's ridiculous legal maneuvers. They've been making this movie for 15 years and I guess Fox was involved at some point, but they never made the movie. They never even tried! Read Lloyd's letter below:
"Watchmen: A Producer's Perspective
An open letter.
Who is right? In the Watchmen dispute between Warner Brothers and Fox that
question is being discussed, analyzed, argued, tried and ruled on in a court of
law. That's one way to answer the question - It is a fallback position in our
society for parties in conflict to resolve disputes. And there are teams of
lawyers and a highly regarded Federal Judge trying to do just that, which
obviates any contribution I could make towards answering the "who is right"
question within a legal context. But after 15 plus years of involvement in the
project, and a decade more than that working in the movie business, I have
another perspective, a personal perspective that I believe important to have on
the public record.
No one is more keenly aware of the irony of this dispute than Larry Gordon
and I who have been trying to get this movie made for many years. There's a list
of people who have rejected the viability of a movie based on Alan Moore and
Dave Gibbon's classic graphic novel that reads like a who's who of Hollywood.
We've been told the graphic novel is unfilmable.
After 9/11 some felt the story's themes were too close to reality ever to
be palatable to a mainstream audience.
There were those who considered the project but who wished it were somehow
different: Could it be a buddy movie, or a team-up movie or could it focus on
one main character; did it have to be so dark; did so many people have to die;
could it be stripped of its flashback structure; could storylines be eliminated;
could new storylines be invented; did it have to be so long; could the blue guy
put clothes on... The list of dissatisfactions for what Watchmen is was as
endless as the list of suggestions to make it something it never was.
Also endless are the list of studio rejections we accrued over the years.
Larry and I developed screenplays at five different studios. We had two false
starts in production on the movie. We were involved with prominent and
commercial directors. Big name stars were interested. In one instance hundreds
of people were employed, sets were being built - An A-list director and top
artists in the industry were given their walking papers when the studio
financing the movie lost faith.
After all these years of rejection, this is the same project, the same
movie, over which two studios are now spending millions of dollars contesting
ownership. Irony indeed, and then some.
Through the years, inverse of the
lack of studio faith has been the passionate belief by many many individuals -
movie professionals who were also passionate fans of the graphic novel - who,
yes, wanted to work on the film, but more for reasons of just wanting to see the
movie get made, to see this movie get made and made right, donated their time
and talent to help push the film forward: Writers gave us free screenplay
drafts; conceptual art was supplied by illustrators, tests were performed gratis
by highly respected actors and helped along and put together by editors,
designers, prop makers and vfx artists; we were the recipients of donated studio
and work space, lighting and camera equipment. Another irony, given the
commercial stakes implied by the pitched legal dispute between Fox and Warners,
is that for years Watchmen has been a project that has survived on the fumes of
whatever could be begged, borrowed and stolen - A charity case for all intents
and purposes. None of that effort, none of that passion and emotional
involvement, is considered in the framework of this legal dispute.
From my point of view, the flashpoint of this dispute, came in late spring
of 2005. Both Fox and Warner Brothers were offered the chance to make Watchmen.
They were submitted the same package, at the same time. It included a cover
letter describing the project and its history, budget information, a screenplay,
the graphic novel, and it made mention that a top director was involved.
And it's at this point, where the response from both parties could not have
been more radically different.
The response we got from Fox was a flat "pass." That's it. An internal Fox
email documents that executives there felt the script was one of the most
unintelligible pieces of shit they had read in years. Conversely, Warner
Brothers called us after having read the script and said they were interested in
the movie - yes, they were unsure of the screenplay, and had many questions, but
wanted to set a meeting to discuss the project, which they promptly did. Did
anyone at Fox ask to meet on the movie? No. Did anyone at Fox express any
interest in the movie? No. Express even the slightest interest in the movie? Or
the graphic novel? No.
From there, the executives at Warner Brothers, who weren't yet completely
comfortable with the movie, made a deal to acquire the movie rights and we all
started to creatively explore the possibility of making Watchmen. We discussed
creative approaches and started offering the movie to directors, our former
director having moved on by then. After a few director submissions, Zack Snyder
came onboard, well before the release of his movie 300. In fact, well before its
completion. This was a gut, creative call by Larry, me and the studio... Zack
didn't have a huge commercial track record, yet we all felt he was the right guy
for the movie.
Warner Brothers continued to support, both financially and creatively, the
development of the movie. And eventually, after over a year of work, they agreed
to make the film, based on a script that, for what it's worth, was by and large
very similar to the one Fox initially read and deemed an unintelligible piece of
shit.
Now here's the part that has to be fully appreciated, if for nothing more
than providing insight into producing movies in Hollywood: The Watchmen script
was way above the norm in length, near 150 pages, meaning the film could clock
in at close to 3 hours, the movie would not only be R rated but a hard R - for
graphic violence and explicit sex - would feature no stars, and had a budget
north of $100M. We also asked Warner Brothers to support an additional 1 to 1.5
hours of content incurring additional cost that would tie in with the movie but
only be featured in DVD iterations of the film. Warners supported the whole
package and I cannot begin to emphasize how ballsy and unprecedented a move this
was on the part of a major Hollywood studio. Unheard of. And would another
studio in Hollywood, let alone a studio that didn't show one shred of interest
in the movie, not one, have taken such a risk? Would they ever have made such a
commitment, a commitment to a film that defied all conventional wisdom?
Only the executives at Fox can answer that question. But if they were to be
honest, their answer would have to be "No."
Shouldn't Warner Brothers be entitled to the spoils - if any -- of the risk
they took in supporting and making Watchmen? Should Fox have any claim on
something they could have had but chose to neither support nor show any interest
in?
Look at it another way... One reason the movie was made was because Warner
Brothers spent the time, effort and money to engage with and develop the
project. If Watchmen was at Fox the decision to make the movie would never have
been made because there was no interest in moving forward with the project.
Does a film studio have the right to stand in the way of an artistic
endeavor and determine that it shouldn't exist? If the project had been
sequestered at Fox, if Fox had any say in the matter, Watchmen simply wouldn't
exist today, and there would be no film for Fox to lay claim on. It seems beyond
cynical for the studio to claim ownership at this point.
By his own admission, Judge Feess is faced with an extremely complex legal
case, with a contradictory contractual history, making it difficult to ascertain
what is legally right. Are there circumstances here that are more meaningful,
which shed light on what is ultimately just, to be taken into account when
assessing who is right? In this case, what is morally right, beyond the minutiae
of decades-old contractual semantics, seems clear cut.
For the sake of the artists involved, for the hundreds of people,
executives and filmmakers, actors and crew, who invested their time, their
money, and dedicated a good portion of their lives in order to bring this
extraordinary project to life, the question of what is right is clear and
unambiguous - Fox should stand down with its claim.
My father, who was a lawyer and a stickler for the minutiae of the law, was
always quick to teach me that the determination of what is right and wrong was
not the sole purview of the courts. I bet someone at Fox had a parent like mine
who instilled the same sense of fairness and justice in them.
Lloyd Levin"
What can you do?
1. Pass this on to post to other people.
2. This is a list of upcoming/open now films from Fox. I'm not saying boycott them, but like the time Sabina and I were too horrified at the fact that we were going to see Sex and the City, we had to make a stand and bought tickets to that Panda movie and just went in the "wrong theatre":
-Marley and Me
-Australia
-Wolverine
-That crappy Taken movie with Liam Neeson (really, you were going to go see that?)
-All About Steve
-The Day the Earth Stood Still
-Ice Age: 3D
-Bride Wars (again, really? Yeah, the woman who went to see Sex and the City is judging you)
-It Came From Upstairs
-the sequel to Night at the Museum, because it really needed one.
-Valkyrie (oh, yes, The Watchmen script was shit but this movie needed to be made! With Tom Cruise as a german guy!?)
3. By The Watchmen graphic novel, which will blow your fucking mind.
Thanks! -tes
