The Best Entertainment Era

Chapter 1087: The Watcher

Originally, Warner Bros. set the schedule for Watchmen in early March, but the sudden outbreak of copyright disputes forced the release of the film to April.

Just like Marvel's comics, the copyright of some DC works is actually very complicated.

Especially the comics that didn't expect to explode in the future, so they didn't care about some rights and interests, and completed the authorization inadvertently.

It is easy to authorize, but it is difficult to withdraw rights.

Especially when part of the rights and interests of Watchmen still fell into the hands of 20th Century Fox, which is also one of the six major Hollywood companies.

As early as the early 1990s, after the success of Tim Burton's Batman movie, Warner Bros. planned to adapt Watchmen into a movie, and even started script writing. The screenwriter at the time was Sam -Ham, it was once rumored that Robin Williams will play Rorschach, Jamie Lee Curtis will play the ghost, and Richard Gere and Kevin Costner will participate and so on.

In order to share the risk, Warner Bros. also approached Twentieth Century Fox and authorized the distribution rights of Watchmen to Twentieth Century Fox.

However, after several rewrites of the script and strong opposition from the original author, Warner Bros. finally shelved the shooting plan of Watchmen, and the cooperation with 20th Century Fox also came to nothing.

Hollywood has never been harmonious, and there has never been a lack of competition among the six major companies. Because of the age-old relationship, Warner Bros. ignored or did not take the agreement more than ten years ago seriously.

As a result, at the most intense stage of the screenwriter strike this year, Twentieth Century Fox directly sued Warner Bros. to court, demanding the distribution rights of the Watchmen movie.

Many times Warner Bros.'s mysterious operations are really confusing. They did not pay attention to this lawsuit in the early stage. It was not until the court ruled that 20th Century Fox won that they suddenly realized and filed a copyright appeal.

Involved in copyright disputes, the release date of Watchmen had to be postponed.

In the end, in order for the film to be released and to ensure the complete rights and interests of Watchmen, Warner Bros. had to pinch its nose and negotiate an out-of-court settlement with 20th Century Fox.

The two sides reached a settlement agreement before the Oscars, and the copyright dispute between Warner Bros. and Twentieth Century Fox was also settled before March.

Warner Bros. paid Twentieth Century Fox a considerable amount of money. Not only did they spit out all the compensation from the Terminator sequel copyright pit, but they also paid 8% of the global box office share.

Correspondingly, 20th Century Fox no longer owns any rights to Watchmen, nor will it act as the film's distributor, and future sequels have nothing to do with it.

To a certain extent, Warner Bros. used the copyright of the sequel of Terminator to cheat Twentieth Century Fox, and Twentieth Century Fox quickly seized the opportunity to get back the place.

Twentieth Century Fox has gone too far.

In the theater, facing Kevin Tsuhara, Ronan said directly: In this case, isn't it the usual practice in the circle to charge a symbolic fee?

Kevin Tsuhara shook his head: They are indeed too much. Warner Bros. has always been friendly with other companies in the circle.

Ronan said casually: The real controller of 20th Century Fox is back. I heard from people in the UK that James Murdoch is more radical.

Warner Bros. was a bit hurt by being cheated this time. Kevin Tsuhara had never suffered such a big loss in recent years, and he was a little angry: A young boy who relies on his parents doesn't know the heights of heaven and earth.

Ronan said: Warner, Fox and News Corporation are very sensitive now, Kevin, there is no need to make such a big fuss.

Kevin Tsuhara did not answer, but asked instead: I heard that you also have conflicts between Relativity Entertainment and 20th Century Fox.

Ronan nodded, looking very sincere: With regard to Fantastic Four and X-Men, the contradictions are sharp and irreconcilable.

This company... Kevin Tsuhara pointed out, This family is really not likable.

Ronan echoed lightly: Who says it's not?

As it stands now, if 20th Century Fox and James Murdoch are in trouble, Warner Bros. will definitely be there.

The competition among the major Hollywood companies is also very fierce, otherwise they would not have become the six major companies, and even later became the five major companies.

When Zach Schneider came in, Ronan chatted with him for a while.

Since Watchmen has already completed all productions, Zach Schneider has been working on the Justice League movie universe since last year. Of course, the specific progress will not be disclosed to Ronan, but the re-directing of the Superman movie has already been made public. news.

The producer Warner Bros. is full of confidence in Zach Schneider, believing that he has a keen sense of fashion and a visual style that matches it.

Zack Snyder also made it clear that his position with Warner Bros. and the Justice League Cinematic Universe has been strengthened thanks to the success of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight.

Ronan knew what he meant, and visually, Zack Snyder was the closest director to Christopher Nolan.

In terms of the great success of The Dark Knight, Warner Bros. chose Zach Snyder when Christopher Nolan would not cooperate, which seems to be a very correct decision.

At the very least, the successful model and style can be continued in future DC comic movies.

The image style of Watchmen is very obviously influenced by The Dark Knight, and its strong dark style is fully revealed from the first second of the opening.

The dark style is a major feature of the film, and another major feature is Zach Schneider, a die-hard fan of DC comics, which makes the film faithful to the comics to the greatest extent.

In previous media interviews, Zach Schneider also mentioned this point, saying that he strives to remain faithful to the original work and the original author: For now, their creativity has withstood the test of time.

Whether this is good or bad is hard to say.

This is a great event for comic fans. Zach Schneider adheres to the principle of being loyal to the original——the original comic highlights sex and violent elements, which is a break with the tradition of superhero comics, and the movie version follows this The setting, full of extremely bloody shots, can also be said to be a breakthrough for superhero movies; the movie version not only follows the structure of the original work, but even maintains the consistency with the comics in terms of lens settings.

Many passers-by expressed that they were not very friendly, especially the plot of a comic interspersed in the movie. Although the comics were highly restored, passers-by viewers felt that this part was a bit redundant.

Fortunately, Zach Schneider did not completely follow the comics, and successfully connected many classic scenes of comics, so that people will not be confused.

It is undeniable that some fans who have watched Watchmen and are familiar with comics will have an illusion: Zack Snyder seems to be afraid of leaving his mark on the film, it is more like a translation rather than from a The switch from one medium to another has made some of the original manga's flaws more apparent.

Comics are not movies.

In fact, one of the wisest decisions made by the previous Marvel series of movies was to make drastic changes to the comics. Although there were problems of one kind or another, the villains were all mentally retarded and funny, but the popularity of the film was guaranteed. The barriers to entry for theaters have been lowered.

What about Warner Bros. and Zack Snyder? Instead, it keeps raising the entry threshold for DC superhero movies, and finally even makes passers-by and audiences completely confused.

Judging from this Watchmen, Warner Bros. and Zack Schneider have embarked on this extremely correct path.

In short, Zach Schneider has not gone to extremes in this movie, and it can be regarded as a preliminary solution to a difficult problem-how to retain the richness of the multi-layered and multi-character characters in the original Watchmen to satisfy the desires of comic fans. , to pave the way for the film to ensure that more viewers who do not know the original work are willing to sit down and watch this 160-minute R-rated film.

This story about superheroes is not ordinary. It describes a world full of crime and conspiracy. Superheroes are exiled. Save yourself from loss.

Even so, the word-of-mouth of The Watcher was inevitably divided like Three Hundred Warriors of Sparta.

Although it is not as exaggerated as Twilight Saga: New Moon, except for 10 points, it is 1 point, but it is not far behind Bao Ge's Vampire Hunter Lincoln.

Those who like it are held up to the sky, and those who don't like it are scolded.

Comic themes, especially film adaptations of superhero comics, have always been regarded as commercial works dedicated to making money.

In recent years, film adaptations based on superhero comics have been successful like Spiderman, Iron Man and The Dark Knight, as well as hit the street like Hulk and Daredevil.

But one thing is obvious, there is also a special analysis in the circle, even if it is a commercial superhero movie, the box office is not particularly bad.

Watchmen opened in 3,911 theaters, the largest scale of an R-rated superhero movie, and Warner Bros. seems to want to make this movie more than Zack Schneider's last Three Hundred Warriors of Sparta More popular and more topical movies.

But the box office of the film is not very good, especially the trend, Friday\u003eSaturday\u003eSunday, 25.14 million US dollars\u003e19 million US dollars\u003e11.52 million US dollars, the curve is not healthy.

According to normal circumstances, this kind of non-sequel film, the box office on Saturday will exceed or at least equal to the box office on Friday.

On its opening weekend in North America, Watchmen earned $55.21 million at the box office.

Not particularly good, but not bad either, even surpassing the $50 million Warner Bros. expected.

Zach Snyder at least handed over a passing answer sheet to Warner Bros. and DC Comics.

(In reality, Warner Bros. and Twentieth Century Fox had a serious dispute over the copyright of Watchmen, and the two parties even sued each other, tossing for several months.)

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