Watchmen Movie

Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox reached a settlement Thursday night on their copyright dispute over the superhero movie "Watchmen," concluding a legal drama between two Hollywood studios that threatened to upend one of the spring's biggest movies. The agreement paves the way for Warner Bros. to release "Watchmen" as planned March 6.

Warner Bros. is urging a federal judge to move up the date on which he will hear arguments about whether the studio may release the much-anticipated movie "Watchmen," arguing that "time is of the essence," with tens of millions of dollars in marketing expenses on the line. "Watchmen," based on a graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, is scheduled for release March 6. But the movie is at the center of a bitter legal battle between Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox. U.S.

Lawyers for 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros. have agreed to let a federal judge decide whether Warner Bros. will be allowed to release "Watchmen" this spring, forgoing a jury trial that could have put the high-profile film's future into even longer limbo. In court papers filed Monday with U.S. District Judge Gary A. Feess, attorneys for Fox and Warner Bros. jointly said they would let the judge decide Jan.

Lawyers for 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros. told a judge Friday that they were trying to settle the copyright lawsuit over "Watchmen," a signal that the nearly year-old court fight over the superhero movie may be nearing a conclusion. The attorneys were to appear before U.S. District Judge Gary A. Feess to schedule a trial later this month over the film's distribution rights when they told the judge that settlement talks were underway. Warner Bros.

The court fight over "The Watchmen" is costing Warner Bros. and 20th Century Fox hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees, but the biggest bill of all could fall to the film's producer, Larry Gordon, his lawyers and their insurers, who could be on the hook for substantially more money. Court documents in the nearly yearlong dispute over the superhero movie's distribution rights show that Warner Bros.

On a wintry day here last year, Zack Snyder hunkered down in a dank prison cell, peered between the bars and watched bloodthirsty inmates run riot. All the smoke and screams only made him smile; the fiery cellblock he saw before him looked nearly identical to the one in the hand-drawn pages of "Watchmen," the landmark 1985 graphic novel. The director didn't have to rely on memory -- he had a rolled-up copy of the comic book on the set with him.

Everybody is talking about "Watchmen." Now if only more people would watch it. Amid a flurry of anticipation and hype, director Zack Snyder's superhero epic opened last weekend with $55.2 million in U.S. ticket sales -- a solid but less-than-blockbuster debut for a movie that Warner Bros. and its partners will have spent $200 million-plus to make and market. The question now is whether all the Internet and water cooler chatter will translate into footsteps into the theaters this weekend.

In a special-effects bonanza such as "Watchmen," a single effect like Dr. Manhattan's eerie blue look could easily be lost in the tumult of nuclear explosions, flying ships, Martian palaces and Antarctic lairs. But with more than 300 shots totaling about 38 minutes of screen time, the effect had to be executed to perfection. Since digitally adding the blue glow to the superhero character played by Billy Crudup in post-production would be prohibitively expensive, John "D.J."

"Watchmen" dropped a precipitous 68% this weekend, grossing $17.8 million after doing $55.2 million in its opening weekend. Forget about Humpty Dumpty -- a real human being might end up in the emergency room after a drop like that (the movie fell 50% overseas as well). Only in Hollywood could anyone put a smiley face on that kind of fall. Sure enough, in Variety's box-office story Monday, Jeff Goldstein (no relation), Warner Bros.'

Director Zack Snyder has said he labored to adapt the ground-breaking graphic novel "Watchmen" faithfully, so that comic book fanatics would not be disappointed. Whether another segment of the audience will be enthusiastic is another question. In a notable sign, surveys of potential moviegoers released Monday suggest that young males may not be embracing the movie as heartily as older die-hard devotees who can't wait for "Watchmen's" arrival in theaters this weekend.