The Weinstein Brothers may be many things, but one thing they have been pretty savvy about is holding onto the rights for things. The fact they’d licensed the rights to Lord Of The Rings meant they made millions out of Peter Jackson’s films without having to do anything. Equally, when they left Miramax, they retained the right of approval on sequels to many of the properties they’d overseen there. It now appears they think they still have distribution rights over any movie based on The Crow comics, and are now suing to prove it.
Relativity Media has been busily drawing up plans to remake The Crow for months, with Juan Carlos Fresnadillo recently signed to direct and Bradley Cooper in talks to star. However those plans have hit a speed bump with a new lawsuit that claims The Weinstein Company still controls the worldwide distribution rights to the remake.
TWC’s lawyer, Bert Fields (who is well known for his hyperbolic, headline grabbing style), alleges there is a written contract in place which gives the Weinsteins the distribution rights to a remake. The lawsuit claims that Ryan Kavanaugh and his company, Relativity Media, plan to sell these distribution rights, which they have no claim on. Because of the weird machinations of Hollywood, a company that has the right to make a movie, doesn’t necesarily have the right to distribute it (or sell it to others to distribute), and that’s the issue here.
Here’s what Bert Fields had to say about the matter, via Deadline: “Mr. Kavanaugh was not going to honour that contract. Apparently, he’s going to sell these rights to others. He made a bunch of threats. Some people may submit to that kind of arrogant conduct, but we’re not going to do it. If anybody tries to buy these distribution rights in The Crow , they are buying nothing but a lawsuit and they will get sued.”
Apparently the two sides had been talking about the issue, but it’s a known Fields tactic that if things aren’t going well, you launch a lawsuit and start spinning to the media, in the hopes it strengthens your case. The fact is, having distribution rights is pointless if there’s no new film, so it’s not in TWC’s interest to kill the movie off, with the lawsuit presumably designed as part of a hardball strategy to get as much of the pie for the Weinsteins as possible.
Relativity has know bitten back, releasing a statement saying: “This is yet another typical litigation stunt from the Weinsteins who have a long history of threatening law suits with the sole purpose of intimidation. If served, Relativity will seek immediate dismissal. While we expect these types of antics from the Weinsteins, we are shocked that a lawyer of Mr. Fields’ caliber would make such false, reckless and intentionally harmful statements to the press about Relativity and Mr. Kavanaugh. We intend to seek appropriate remedies for this misconduct. Clearly this is a feeble attempt to create a press stir and a malicious effort to interfere with Relativity’s development of the project.”
What isn’t clear is who really does own the distribution rights. Relativity obviously believes it does, although it is true the Weinsteins’ Dimension Films distributed the last couple of straight-to-DVD Crow movies. As a result they may still have some rights, or at least a case to argue they do. Expect it all to be settled soon though, as killing the project helps nobody.