No Superman Until Legal Issues Resolved?

[Jetfire]

What!?

This blows my mind why another movie can't be made NOW!!!

They should have had the sequal to SR going right after it came out...it was still in the top 10 of grossing movies that year.

We need to send WB & DC a message.

We want a Superman movie NOW!!!

 

[Bad Bishop]

We need to send WB & DC a message.

Yeah, let's start an Internet petition. It's guaranteed to get their attention. Or else let's boycott something. That always works.

 

[Jetfire]

If enough people cared to act on it...maybe.

But I doubt it.

 

[Gojirob]

2013 is 75 years, right? Maybe we'll get something by then, or at least announced.

 

[A beaker full of death]

They should have had the sequal to SR going right after it came out...

Maybe, but even Hollywood is given pause when a movie disappoints that badly.

 

[Out Of My Vulcan Mind]

If your high-priced copyright lawyers are telling you to hold off on producing a new film because it could put you in a precarious legal and financial position if you go ahead with a film prematurely, then that's what you do. You don't say, "Ah, but there are fans who are really eager for a new Superman film, so we're just going to ignore your legal advice and make one now."

 

[Jetfire]

^
I thought they had to make one soon or they will lose the rights???

 

[Hermiod]

^How exactly would Warner Brothers lose the rights to a comic book character owned by a comic book company they own ?

 

[Jetfire]

^How exactly would Warner Brothers lose the rights to a comic book character owned by a comic book company they own ?

Read this

http://splashpage.mtv.com/2009/07/13/superman-movie-absent-from-warner-bros-2011-calendar/

 

[Out Of My Vulcan Mind]

^How exactly would Warner Brothers lose the rights to a comic book character owned by a comic book company they own ?

Under copyright law a creator or the heirs of a creator can try to reclaim all or part of the copyright over a character once a prescribed number of years has gone by from the character's first publication. Some of the Superman rights are approaching that time frame and Jerry Siegel's heirs are trying to reclaim those rights.

There are, though, a lot of erroneous assumptions and oversimplifications about the ongoing legal case and the rights situation being thrown about online. Warners can't put a stake through the heirs' claims by making another film in the next couple of years. If the heirs win their case they'll reclaim certain rights no matter whether Warners produces a film now or not. And if the heirs do regain some of the rights it won't give them complete control of the character. Warners/DC would still control many elements of Superman copyright and they'd still retain Superman as a trademark.

One of the big issues in the case is whether the heirs are entitled to be paid out a percentage of everything Warners and DC have made from Superman and, if so, how much. Obviously having that as an unresolved issue puts the financial picture of any prospective Superman film in doubt. They took a big financial hit when it turned out that legal due diligence hadn't been properly done regarding the rights to Watchmen, so it's not at all surpising that they're holding off on a new Superman film until the legal issues are resolved.