Any TV/Film Rights Issues You're Still Confused About?

[krazijoe]

I know not film or TV but I have always been interested in Malibu comics and what exactly is in the contract to give Marvel pause to not create anything new in their IP. I miss me some Prime...

[krazijoe]

Strap in, 'cause here's the weird double-headed legal drama of Friday the 13th...

In the beginning, Friday the 13th was produced and distributed by Paramount Pictures, and they ran that gravy train all through the 80s until the slasher craze kinda fizzled come the 90s. They didn't want to do anymore, so Sean S. Cunningham--the guy who directed the first movie--bought the rights and brought them over to New Line Cinema to cash in on a prospective Jason Voorhees versus Nightmare on Elm Street's Freddy Krueger film.

However, Cunningham and New Line only had the rights to the character of Jason Voorhees and his associated lore. The previous movies, including the actual title "Friday the 13th" were sill owned by Paramount. This is why all New Line Jason movies are titled "Jason..." as opposed to Friday the 13th--Jason Goes to Hell, Jason X, and Freddy vs. Jason. This is also why, while Freddy vs. Jason includes flashback clips from previous Nightmare movies, they show nothing from prior Friday movies, and why for a long time if you got a F13 box set, it would only be parts 1-8, but not 9, X, or Freddy vs.

Fast forward some years...Warner Bros. has bought out New Line Cinema and now owns everything they have--including Jason--and they want to capitalize on the brief slasher remake run that started with 2003's Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And it turns out Paramount wants in, too. So, they work out a deal where they co-produce a new Jason movie that gets to be titled Friday the 13th in 2009.

It makes a healthy profit, so naturally, there's immediate talk of making a sequel. And here's where things gets pear-shaped, because although both Warner and Paramount want to make another one, neither wants to share the profits with the other, and neither is willing to just buy-out the other. So, the Friday the 13th franchise basically ends up stuck in a weird stare-down between the two companies, waiting to see who blinks first and sells.

I don't know for certain if this has been resolved yet. And if it has, I don't know who's won. It's worth noting they recently released a F13 box set that includes every movie. Also, Jason did appear alongside other Warner owned IPs in Ready Player One.

Unfortunately, that's not the end of Friday the 13th's legal woes.

As said, although Jason and F13 are or were caught in a stalemate between Warner and Paramount, the actual rights to the IP belonged to Sean Cunningham--who, it's worth nothing, directed only the first movie and had nothing to do with the franchise until he bought the rights from Paramount after 1989's Jason Takes Manhattan.

The script for the first Friday the 13th was written by Victor Miller. Meaning he came up with the idea of Camp Crystal Lake, Jason downing, and his mother going nuts and killing people...basically, the foundation of the franchise. Though paid for the first movie, he believes...since it's gone on to become this decade-spanning franchise worth millions in merchandise among other things...he's owed a cut.

As current owner of the rights, it's on Cunningham to pay him or prove he's not owed a dime. Naturally, Cunningham has been shooting for the latter.

His first argument is that Miller wrote the script as "work-for-hire" and therefore should only have been paid for the only movie he wrote (which he was). Problem is that wasn't put into writing, as at the time, no one thought this movie was going to be any more than a forgettable pot-boiler. So no one was inking out a thorough contract dealing with potential merchandise sales or sequel deals.
His second argument is that, although Miller came up with the backstory of Jason drowning in Crystal Lake and his mother killing people, he had nothing to do with the sequels that had Jason come back to life, wear a hockey mask, and be this hulking brute. Therefore, Cunningham argues, Miller shouldn't receive money for anything related to Jason beyond the first movie.

Fun little aside...it's amusing Cunningham would go for that second argument considering he's had nothing to do with Jason as he's currently known either. He dropped out after the first movie and had nothing to do with the franchise until Jason Goes to Hell years later. Adding to the irony, according to the director of Jason Goes to Hell, one of Cunningham's directives was "get Jason out of the damn mask"...as he apparently hated the hockey mask.

Anyway, this has basically put a complete freeze and anything happening with Friday the 13th. Regardless of who can produce the movies, nothing's getting done until this is settled. This is also why that F13 video game had to shut down even though it was still doing very well and the developers were in the middle of creating DLC.

Last I heard, the courts have ruled in favor of Victor Miller on the grounds that Cunningham can't prove he wrote the first movie as work-for-hire, but Cunningham is appealing.
There's even been suggestion that Cunningham might try to effectively split Jason down the middle in order to make new movies without having to pay Miller. Which would mean having a big dude in a hockey mask, but make no mention of Crystal Lake or Jason's mother or anything Miller actually had a hand in, which...I don't see that flying.

As far as I know, Friday the 13th is still stuck in legal hell. As said, Cunningham is appealing, and even if that fails, they'll need to work out what exactly Miller is owed and what would he get paid for future films.

And this is why we haven't seen a new Friday the 13th movie in over ten years.

Yeah, that is one HUGE mess all in the name of money...

[krazijoe]

Dogma. Great movie but can't buy it anywhere...
Apparently Harvey Weinstein is doing it just to be an a$$...
https://www.thewrap.com/why-isnt-dog...g-kevin-smith/

[Slimybug]

Does anyone know what the rights issues are like with Zorro? Disney produced the 1950s series that aired on ABC (before Disney bought it), another version aired on The Family Channel (before Disney bought it), and The Mask of Zorro was produced by TriStar, which is at least now owned by Sony. I thought that meant Disney lost the rights completely, but now the 1950s show is on Disney+. So how's that all work out?

Also, on another note, I get frustrated when I see movies from one studio on the other's streaming service. It confuses me, like, makes me think that there are more issues than there really might be, when in actuality, one service likely just paid the other to license it. But with some movies, you wonder why they would.

For example, Daredevil (2003)(Disney) is on HBOMax. Like, what?

[Slimybug]

Sorry to double-post, but that's another thing that bugs me, is the Disney/Netflix shows. What gave Disney the right to take them off Netflix and put them on Disney+? They had already made the deal to put them on Netflix back before they had their own streaming service. Shouldn't Netflix own those shows permanently?

[Somecrazyaussie]

Sorry to double-post, but that's another thing that bugs me, is the Disney/Netflix shows. What gave Disney the right to take them off Netflix and put them on Disney+? They had already made the deal to put them on Netflix back before they had their own streaming service. Shouldn't Netflix own those shows permanently?

Ultimately Marvel TV still had a hand in producing those shows and Netflix pretty much licensed the rights to make those shows. Ultimately they don't own the IP. Under the terms of the contract they signed (And agreed to) it was only for a set time frame and number of characters.

Marvel could have renewed the deal. But Disney+ launched so they opted not to do so. Waited a number of years. Then reclaimed the IP (including the shows based on them).

All legal and above board.

[Slimybug]

So apparently now Hulk is back at Marvel/Disney, and Disney even owns the film The Incredible Hulk now. Hope we get to see a World War Hulk movie!

[choptop]

So apparently now Hulk is back at Marvel/Disney, and Disney even owns the film The Incredible Hulk now. Hope we get to see a World War Hulk movie!

They were supposed to go back in June but i don't know if it went through or not there really hasn't been any talk as for The Incredible Hulk movie why do you think Disney owns that?

[ERON]

As for how Warner Bros. ended up with The Wizard of Oz, in the 80s, Ted Turner bought MGM/UA only to turn around and sell it off almost immediately. However, he only sold the studio itself, retaining ownership of any movies MGM/UA had produced prior to the sale for himself so he could show them on his various TV networks. When Turner merged his company with Time-Warner in the 90s, ownership of those movies, including The Wizard of Oz, went to Warner Bros.

[Vakanai]

The Alien franchise - I would think Fox and now Disney would own all the rights or enough of to prevent this, but clearly Ridley Scott still owns enough to have a huge say in the franchise - it's the only explanation I can give for why they've willingly ruined the franchise with those damn horrible god-awful prequels of his. **** I headcanon out Prometheus and Covenant just to try and remain hopeful. As bad as they were, at least the 3rd, 4th, and two AVP films were kind of fun, like I could respect a so bad it's good argument for those films, but those prequels are boring as hell on top of being bad, there's just nothing redeemable there. Scott's got to have some oversized rights ownership to keep getting a say in these right?


What's the rights status of Gargoyles? It's hard to believe Disney holds the entire rights to such a great franchise yet hasn't done anything with it in nearly 30 years, surely Greg Wiseman has some rights and Disney doesn't want to pay him or something? Just, why sit on it so long otherwise?

[Slimybug]

As for how Warner Bros. ended up with The Wizard of Oz, in the 80s, Ted Turner bought MGM/UA only to turn around and sell it off almost immediately. However, he only sold the studio itself, retaining ownership of any movies MGM/UA had produced prior to the sale for himself so he could show them on his various TV networks. When Turner merged his company with Time-Warner in the 90s, ownership of those movies, including The Wizard of Oz, went to Warner Bros.

Wow!

What's interesting about that is that he must have sold back a lot of the UA movies, like Rocky, James Bond, etc, but kept the MGM films from before the 1980 merger, and thosee would have have gone to WB. Like, Gone with the Wind is also on Max!

On those montages on '90s VHSs when we were kids, they only had either UA movies or MGM/UA movies from after the merger, but never showed clips from classic MGM movies like Gone with the Wind, the Wizard of Oz, or Ben-Hur!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oemL820PvFQ

[Nate Grey]

Fright Night part 2, or specifically why it can't be released (officially) on home media.

José Menendez had the rights, and was even in talks to make part 3 with Roddy McDowall on board, then his two sons killed him. That explains why part 3 never happened, but not why the sequel (though not the original) is unavailable.