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Today, several people joined the cast of the Masters of the Universe film, including Jared Leto as Skeletor.
Posted in: Disney, Fox, Movies | Tagged: disney, fox, Friday the 13th, jason vs predator, jim and john thomas, predator, predator legal rights
Predator Rights In Legal Dispute Between Original Writers & Disney
Predator fans, take a seat on the bench next to Jason Voorhees. The rights to the franchise are now going to be held up in court, much like the Friday The 13th rights. The 1987 film writers, Jim and John Thomas, are suing Disney to reclaim Predator from Disney, who owns the franchise after purchasing Fox a couple of years ago now. The news was reported on by The Hollywood Reporter. This follows a few cases like this these last few years, which was started most famously by Victor Miller suing Sean Cunningham over the rights to the Friday The 13th franchise. He won and is now in appeals hell in the California legal system.
Could The Fifth Predator Film Be Affected? Marvel Already Has Been
"The Thomas brothers are seeking to exploit copyright law's termination provision, which allows authors to cancel transfers after waiting a period of time, typically 35 years, for newer works. According to the complaint, the effective termination date for their screenplay (originally titled "Hunters") is April 17, this Saturday. Jim and John Thomas say they served a termination notice all the way back in 2016 — and for four-and-a-half years heard no objection." A fifth Predator film was set to film this summer for release in the next year, but there is no word on if that is affected by this news. Guess we have an answer as to why Marvel suddenly pulled all their special variant month covers and the launch of the new Predator series planned for this summer as well now.
At least I don't think we have to worry about Ridley Scott doing this with Alien! Seriously though, the precedent has been set now that Miller won his Friday suit, and a TON more cases like this are going to start popping up every few months now. Maybe we can see all the creators get the rights back and make an epic Jason Vs. Predator film! That would be pretty neat.
More to follow, I'm sure…
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