Zitat:
Lloyd Levin
"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"
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