apropos of nothing

Fox and Warner Bros. Besieged by Steamed ‘Watchmen’ and ‘Harry Potter’ Fans

By , a features writer for New York Magazine.  He was previously the magazine’s culture editor and one of the original editors of Vulture.

Courtesy of Warner Bros.


Following Tuesday’s news that Fox’s copyright lawsuit over Watchmen could threaten the movie’s release next March (or, more likely, force Warner Bros.’ to cough up a settlement) angry comics fans have, predictably, descended on Fox, with geeks threatening to boycott the studio’s upcoming X-Men Origins: Wolverine and The Day the Earth Stood Still. Nerds at one Website are even, according to EW, threatening to make “a crappy cam recording of [Wolverine] and post it somewhere on the Internet for illegal download†(which geeks already do to pretty much every movie anyway, but whatever). Feeling the pain, a Fox spokesman released a statement:

Of course we are concerned about the fans; however, any disappointment from the core fans should not be directed toward Fox. What we are doing is seeking to enforce our distribution rights to Watchmen. Legal copyright ownership should not just be swept under the rug and ignored.â€

Likewise, irate Harry Potter fans — still sore over last week’s announcement that Half-Blood Prince has been pushed back from its planned November release all the way until next summer — have forced poor Warner Bros. head Alan Horn to respond:

Many of you have written to me to express your disappointment in our moving “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince†to Summer 2009. […] If I may offer a silver lining: there would have been a two-year gap between “Half-Blood Prince†and the much-anticipated first part of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,†which opens in November 2010. So although we have to wait a little longer for “Half-Blood Prince,†the wait from that film until “Deathly Hallows†will be less than 18 months. I am sorry to have disappointed you now, but if you hold on a little longer, I believe it will be worth the wait.

If the multitudes of ticked-off Harry Potter fans really wanted to bring Warner to its knees, we’d suggest they focus on stymieing the protests of the weaker, lesser-in-number Watchmen fans, thus allowing Fox’s copyright suit to continue apace.

The ‘Watchmen’ war: Fanboys furious with Fox [EW]