WB Wins Superman Case
Thursday, July 9th, 2009 at 10:51 am Category: Movies, News
Warner Bros. has won their case against the heirs of Superman co-creater, Jerome Siegel.
In a decision announced Wednesday, U.S. Judge District Court Judge Stephen G. Larson found that the license fees the studio paid to corporate sibling DC Comics didn’t represent “sweetheart” deals as they weren’t below fair market value. That means the heirs will be able seek profits only from DC Comics — which earned $13.6 million from Warner Bros. for the 2006 release of “Superman Returns” — rather than from Warner Bros. as well.
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The heirs had accused Warners of making “sweetheart” deals with DC in 1999 for feature rights and in 2000 for TV rights for “Smallville.” The feature rights included $1.5 million upfront, $18.5 million for option extensions over 31 years and 5% of first-dollar worldwide distributor gross or 7.5% of domestic gross — whichever was larger — while the TV rights included $45,000 per episode, 3% of first-dollar gross for the first $1.5 million and 5% thereafter.
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The judge, who conducted a 10-day bench trial, also noted that Warner Bros. chairman Alan Horn had testified that he hopes to make another “Superman” movie but added that the property wasn’t under development at the studio, that no script had been written and that the earliest another “Superman” pic could be released would be in 2012.
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["The Court pointedly ruled that if Warner Bros. does not start production on another Superman film by 2011, the Siegels will be able to sue to recover their damages," Toberoff added. "The Siegels look forward to the remainder of the case, which will determine how much defendants owe them for their exploitations of Superman."]
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In making his decision, Larson looked at other licensing deals for properties such as Iron Man, X-Men and Spider-Man. Attorney Marc Toberoff, who represents heirs Joanne Siegel and Laura Siegel Larson, told Daily Variety that the judge had erred in not considering comparable licensing deals for bestselling novels penned by Tom Clancy and Michael Crichton and popular musicals such as “My Fair Lady.”
However, it sounds like the Siegels are not done with this, and their lawyer has stated that he believes that the heirs of Siegel and Shuster will own the Superman copyright in its entirety by 2013:
“This trial was only an interim step in the multifaceted accounting case which remains, in that it only concerned the secondary issue of whether DC Comics, or DC Comics and Warner Bros., would have to account to the Siegels,” he said. “To put this in further perspective, the entire accounting action pales in comparison to the fact that in 2013, the Siegels, along with the estate of Joe Shuster, will own the entire original copyright to Superman, and neither DC Comics nor Warner Bros. will be able to exploit any new Superman works without a license from the Siegels and Shusters.”
You can check out the full in-depth article over at Variety.
Responses to “WB Wins Superman Case”
so what does this mean for the epic mark millar superman trilogy movies?
My guess is that WB would probably have at least something in development for a new Supes movie in the next two years anyway. I think if they really wanted to go with the Mark Millar trilogy they could probably still do it. But they will need to be getting their asses in gear.
I’m more interested to learn what this means for Superman comics after 2013….
What happens if the Siegels and the Shusters re-obtain the copyright and DC is left with no Batman since they go to work publishing it themselves?
[...] here, but this guy is rumored to be in the running for a new Superman movie – which now has a court mandate to release a new Superman film by [...]
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