August 23, 2011
To Sue Your Enemies And See Them Driven Before You
Hollywood Reporter makes a slightly bigger deal than is probably necessary about a Stan Lee Media, Inc. lawsuit about the transfer of the Conan properties. It's a fun read, though.
Basically, all this white dwarf version of SLMI -- now a completely different entity from the individual Stan Lee, and in fact they're contentious -- has going for itself is the assignation of various media properties during its brief and troubled life back during the heady days of Internet Fever 1.0. The current board believes this includes the assignations Lee made at company's near-start, which they further think that because of the nature of the settlement Lee eventually forged with Marvel that this includes various Marvel characters he co-created -- that in coming to terms with Lee Marvel admitted Lee had some claim to ownership that made such a settlement possible, only Lee couldn't settle because SLMI owned those rights. It sounds like a con-man movie plot, but there you go. SLMI vs. Stan Lee/Marvel is where most of the heat has been with SLMI in recent years, and I think after being soundly defeated once, the SLMI claims against Marvel are going to make another cycle through the court.
This is a bit different. The acquisition of the Conan rights was a separate, pretty straight-forward (as I recall, anyway) deal, so the focus of
this case will likely be on how the rights were ceded back to the person directing them now, and whether or not this was a permissible move according to where the company was in bankruptcy proceedings or who was doing the transferring at the time it was done.
I would imagine this is a combination PR move and legal maneuver designed to buttress similar claims in other cases. The timing of the suit and the fact that the new
Conan film made like $11.37 in domestic box office would seem to indicate this. Then again, with SLMI, who knows?
posted 4:20 am PST |
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