By Scott Bowles, USA TODAY
LOS ANGELES — Fox and Warner Bros. are squabbling over the rights to Watchmen. But a third, unlikely party has emerged in the battle: fans.
Watchmen, adapted from a graphic novel and starring Jackie Earle Haley and Matthew Goode, is one of the most anticipated releases of 2009.
Warner Bros. made the film and plans to release it March 6, but 20th Century Fox has filed a suit claiming it has some rights to the project. As part of the litigation, Fox asked a judge to block the movie's release.
Few in the industry expect that to happen. But fans of the graphic novel aren't quietly waiting for the legal process to sort it out.
They're taking on Fox, threatening to boycott the studio's future movies and, more alarming to studio executives, pirate films. That includes one of Fox's biggest of 2009, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, scheduled for May 1.
"It's pure rage out there," says Rob Worley, host of Comics2Film.com and author of the graphic novel The Revenant. "Fans are mortified this movie won't come out, and they're threatening a studio at a level I've never seen before."
Fox isn't showing any signs of backing off, however.
"While it's understandable that fans would react with passion, copyright infringement cannot be swept under the rug," the studio said in an e-mail.
But fans question why Fox brought the suit after the $100 million film was completed.
"It's the timing that bothers people the most," says Garth Franklin of the comic fan site DarkHorizons.com.
Fox says the studio tried to resolve the issue out of court. But "we were repeatedly rebuffed."
Warner Bros. says in a statement: "We … do not believe they have any rights in and to this project."
Relationships between studios and diehard fans, who now have a bigger voice via the Internet, have traditionally been stormy. Many fans of the Watchmen graphic novel didn't even want a movie in the hands of a big studio. But the movie's trailer was a hit at this year's Comic-Con, "and now suddenly everyone is worried it's not going to come out," Worley says. "And now they're not the fans of (Fox's) X-Men that they once were."
That kind of finicky loyalty can make it impossible to address fan concerns, says David Poland of MovieCityNews.com.
Many fans "don't know anything about the business of making movies, which can be pretty ugly when you draw the curtains back," he says. "They're angry without considering that, legally, Fox may have a point."
Of course, it's the moviegoers who make the ultimate point.
"Fans of this genre have a very long memory," Franklin says. "I wouldn't be surprised if, when Wolverine comes out, if there was a backlash."
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