There’s No Way Watchmen Is Getting Released in March

The Watchmen movie trial has been delayed to January 20th, because the judge can’t figure out who’s more right. From the Los Angeles Times:

A federal judge said Monday that he was unable to decide whether 20th
Century Fox controls rights to the movie that Warner Bros. has produced
and plans to release March 9, leaving open the possibility that the
dispute between the studios could be tried on Jan. 20.

U.S.
District Court Judge Gary Feess told lawyers for Fox and Warners that a
series of 1990s contracts between Fox and “Watchmen” producer Larry
Gordon are so open to interpretation that he could not render a
pre-trial judgment for either party, as the lawyers had requested.

If the case isn’t clear enough now, there’s no way the case will be settled in a week or so. And given how much effort has to be spent advertising and merchandising, Warner would be taking a huge gamble to go ahead and plan on being able to release the film in March. They’d be smart to just delay it now until the shit gets sorted out, but I’m sure that would cost them millions in what they’ve already spent. Basically, there’s about a 90% chance Warner gets fucked no matter what, while Fox has a 50% chance of making a lot of money for doing nothing but being assholes.

Moral: I’ll be shocked if any of us see Watchmen in March.