SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Screenings are being set up this week for streamers Amazon Prime Video, Apple and Netflix to check out and potentially acquire Warner Bros' axed Looney Tunes movieCoyote vs. Acmeafter the studio's phone ran off the hook the entire weekend from angry filmmakers and talent reps over their third feature film kill after Batgirland Scoob Holiday Haunt!
The more egregious Hollywood sin with Coyote vs. Acme is that it's a finished film was intended for a theatrical release, while the other two movies were still in the works.
[...] Amazon also is a great landing pad for Coyote vs. Acme as the studio has three upcoming movies with its star John Cena: Heads of State, Ricky Stanicky and Grand Death Lotto.
Also, during a very noisy weekend for the movie on social media with Coyote vs. Acme and Gravity Oscar winning composer calling Warner Bros. "bizarre anti-art studio financial shenanigans I will never understand," some have told me that the killing of Coyote vs. Acme didn't come from WBD CEO David Zaslav himself. Rather, the blame should be set at the feet of Warner Bros. Motion Picture bosses Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy and Warner Bros. new Animation Head Bill Damaschke, who are being made the scapegoats. The motives here were to protect the Looney Tunes IP and also scrub the studio of product developed by the previous administration.
The only thing wrong with that narrative is that De Luca and Abdy never have had any previous offends of killing a previous administration's films or finished movies. Not until landing at Warner Bros. As my mother use to say, "There's no such thing as a coincidence."
[...] While Warner Bros Discovery CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels said that the media's coverage of Batgirl's cancellation was "blown out of proportion" back in September 2022, I guess he wasn't seeing or hearing the harsh criticism from the Hollywood creative community and the film's creatives and talent, both on social and by phone.
Also, what does the Coyote vs. Acme move by Warner Bros Discovery say to DC bosses Peter Safran and James Gunn? Can their movies or projects be killed at a last-minute's notice? Along with Chris DeFaria, Gunn is a producer on Coyote vs. Acme. The Guardians of the Galaxy architect was a co-scribe on the movie. We understand that the filmmaker-friendly Gunn and Safran's greenlights moving forward are bonafide and not in danger of any tax tricks.
The Looney Tunes brand isn't Harry Potter, and it's certainly not The Marvels. The brand has been turned upside down, reinvented and reset several times during the course of its 90-year-plus history at Warner Bros. Certainly a family movie that grosses between $160M-$200M worldwide wouldn't do damage to the studio, but rather play directly to the audience it's suppose to play to.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Thexalon on Thursday November 16 2023, @07:15PM (1 child)
A Warner Brothers spokesperson was quoted as saying "Ehh, ain't I a stinker?" before munching on a carrot.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Tork on Thursday November 16 2023, @07:45PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 5, Interesting) by EJ on Thursday November 16 2023, @07:43PM (12 children)
Copyright law was originally intended to encourage creativity while eventually adding new works to the public domain. However, it has become a tool of abuse for big corporations, twisted from its original intent.
I feel like it is in the public interest that, if you refuse to release a creative work TO THE PUBLIC, then you should lose copyright protections for that work.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Thursday November 16 2023, @08:06PM (10 children)
Besides the alarming issues of effectively taking the work a company has spent millions to produce, wouldn't that be a recipe for even more sequels and rehashes?
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Thursday November 16 2023, @08:18PM
Well since they're not releasing it anyway they're not losing anything.
(Score: 2) by EJ on Thursday November 16 2023, @08:55PM (8 children)
If they want to make money from it, then they should release it to the public for sale. If they don't want to do that, then they don't deserve copyright protections.
The USA may not be a socialist society, but it's still a society. If you aren't doing something to benefit the society, then you don't really deserve its protections.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Tork on Thursday November 16 2023, @09:27PM (4 children)
Why isn't that their property to shelve for as long as they want to? What about situations where the final product isn't worth releasing? Not every movie is a gold-mine.
My perspective on this is that I've written a few short-stories but I don't see why anybody else is entitled to them even though I've never published them. They're not good enough right now.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Thursday November 16 2023, @10:10PM (1 child)
Well your example falls flat in this particular situation since movie's authors actually still do want to release it.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 17 2023, @02:50AM
> ... since movie's authors actually still do want to release it.
The problem here is that the movie's authors almost certainly are bound by a work-for-hire contract.
Under the current copyright law (I'm familiar with USA, may be true elsewhere?), default copyright protection automatically goes to creators. You own the work you create and even if you don't bother to add "(c), 2023" to it, you likely have a defensible copyright if someone steals your work and you sue them.
Work-for-hire was invented to get around this, contracts are signed where any (c) material created belongs to the sponsor or company that hired the creative person(s). Not only for script writers, this applies to all sorts of creative technical work as well--in exchange for getting paid the company that sponsors or hires you owns the rights to the work.
The work-for-hire contract wording needs to be very specific. We did a project for a large company that resulted in a book manuscript. Once we delivered it, the sponsoring company chose to not publish it. Over a year or so, we looked into things (this was early 1990s) and eventually discovered that both sides were ignorant of the law. While we wrote under a typical engineering services contract, it did not include the work for hire language. Not wanting to piss off the sponsor (they were also sponsoring other interesting work) we discussed with their legal dept. and eventually got them to agree that we owned the (c). At that point we took the work to a publisher and got it published. Of course there was a publication contract, but that's another story.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 16 2023, @11:01PM
Nobody's saying you would be forced to hand them over, just that you don't have copyright protection. If you left them lying on a bench in a park and someone happened to find them and published them, tough shit.
I think copyright should go back to the model where you must submit a copy of the work and get a registration number, and only that registered work is protected. Want to keep it secret, fine, but if it leaks, too bad, so sad.
(Score: 2) by EJ on Friday November 17 2023, @01:22AM
Copyright laws probably need special provisions for big companies that offer less protection than for small writers. In this specific case, most of the people involved in creating the movie want it released. Copyright law should give them a way to take it back from the company.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by crafoo on Thursday November 16 2023, @11:06PM (2 children)
I think making copyright non-transferable and limit it to 15-25 years or so would fix things.
as far as the socialism/communism globalist free-trader kosher sandwich: there is a third way, and it built the USA industrial base, Japan, Germany, and now China into economic powerhouses. It's inherently anti-globalist though, so you can imagine our current elite class does not want you to even know it exists. Maybe Check out Michael Hudson's book if you're curious. He was a semi-reformed marxist when he wrote it (it's actually a collection of his essays) but don't hold that against him. Interestingly, the only people reading that book ATM are Chinese. Go figure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 17 2023, @02:54AM (1 child)
Which Michael Hudson book are you recommending? There are a bunch--
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Michael-Hudson/author/B000APC58U [amazon.com]
Just say no to off-hand, sloppy citations & references...
(Score: 2) by driverless on Saturday November 18 2023, @08:57AM
The one with the cover... you know, the long title and everything, and his name at the bottom. Yeah, that one, you can't miss it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Mykl on Thursday November 16 2023, @09:57PM
If a particular work hasn't been released to the public then I don't believe copyright applies. If I write a script to a movie and drop it in a desk drawer for 10 years, I don't get to sue for copyright infringement if someone else happens to produce a similar movie to mine during that time.
In the case of Loony Tunes, many of the characters are still under (overly long) copyright. That's a separate issue - there's no obligation on a studio to continue producing content just because they own a particular IP ("Gone With the Wind 2: Rhett's Return" anyone?).
Personally, I think the best solution to the problem is to reduce copyright terms back to their original timeframes (in the US, it was 28 years up until 1976).
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday November 17 2023, @05:18AM (8 children)
Babylon 5.
Go back in time and spend more on the project and do the CGI correctly so it can be enhanced properly.
And bring back Jerry Doyle, Stephen Furst, Andreas Katsulas, Michael O'Hare; make Peter Jurasik young again.... drop Mira Furlan (just not my favourite).
Do it.
Now.
"Would you prefer to be conscious or unconscious during the mating? I would prefer conscious, but I don't know what your .. pleasure threshold is."
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday November 17 2023, @06:36AM (7 children)
Andreas Katsulas died in 2006. Wasn't he one of the first B5 cast to go?
Jerry Doyle 2016, Stephen Furst 2017, Michael O'Hare 2012...are you talking about recreating all these people via AI/CGI or something? I'm not sure I'm following what point you're trying to make.
So you want to digitally recreate everything *except* this one random actor you didn't like? So what, you want to refilm all her scenes/digitally replace her with someone else? This proposition is sounding increasingly wacky.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Funny) by tangomargarine on Friday November 17 2023, @06:40AM (5 children)
oh right, this is a tongue-in-cheek time travel proposition and I'm taking it too literally huh
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday November 17 2023, @07:16PM (4 children)
Yup! :)
Just me wishing. B5 is great, but hard to watch at times: damn Paramount and your Deep Space
59.--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by EJ on Friday November 17 2023, @09:12PM (1 child)
Based on the Babylon 5 canon, the original station members will be recreated as AI eventually for propaganda.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Saturday November 18 2023, @08:05AM
A trend that is as inevitable as it is depressing. Why bother recruiting/beating with a wrench the actual person to read your propaganda, when you can just get AI to generate a deepfake of them?
It's already enough of a mindfuck trying to figure out what is actual real-world news these days already, versus something that is a blatant lie that half the country believes anyway :(
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Saturday November 18 2023, @07:55AM (1 child)
I watched at least the first 4 seasons of Babylon 5, and while I'm a big Star Trek nerd otherwise, I have an inordinately difficult time finishing DS9. Everybody says it gets better when the Dominion War starts, which is like frickin' season 3 or 4, then as soon as the war officially starts, they spend like 7 episodes in a row on other stuff. Oh my goddddd, it's already taken me 3 tries to get this far :P
I remember getting very tired of Sheridan doing his regular face-to-camera lecture about ethics too, but I'll always remember that pivotal episode where Earthgov fires on Congress and the rebellion starts.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Saturday November 18 2023, @08:01AM
Kind of like how there are periodically rumors about reviving Firefly...if they ever do it, they'll recast everybody and generally shit all over it, I'm sure. That, plus apparently Joss Whedon is a bit of a douchebag anyway :P
They did talk about a B5 reboot fairly recently (?), with JMS involved even, but until the actual parent corp starts shooting up flares about it actually airing, talk is cheap. And that's assuming the executives don't lean on him to change everything about his baby to suit modern trends, eh?
There were rumors about people in the industry pitching a new Stargate show too in the last year, but the head honchos didn't go for it, apparently. That would also make me happy, but I'm not holding my breath.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by driverless on Saturday November 18 2023, @09:06AM
Holy shit, did they film it inside an asbestos mine below an Indian burial ground in Yucca Flat or something?