Superman heirs have their day in court… and lose
Yesterday, Variety reported on the outcome of the ongoing legal troubles between Warner Bros., DC Comics, and the heirs of Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster and it doesn’t look good for them.
U.S. District Court judge Stephen G. Larson found that the licensing fees paid by the studio to the comics company for the rights in order to make Superman Returns were indeed of a fair market value and not indicative of a “sweetheart” deal. As thus, Joanne Siegel and Laura Siegel Larson are only entitled to their share of the $13.6 million that DC earned from the sale of the rights rather than any portion of the $391 million that the studio grossed worldwide for the film.
The companies released a joint statement, quoted in the article:
“DC Comics and Warner Bros. Entertainment are very gratified by the court’s thorough and well-reasoned decision in this matter,” the companies said in a joint statement. “The decision validates what DC and Warner Bros. have maintained from the beginning, which is that when they do business with each other, they always strive for—and achieve—fair market value in their transactions. We are very pleased that the court found there was no merit to plaintiffs’ position that the Superman deals were unfair to DC Comics and, by extension, the plaintiffs.”
However, there’s a second component to the case which will take place on December 1, when Larson will take a stab at figuring out exactly how much in profits the women will get from an earlier ruling which gave them half the copyright to the character, as well as an additional part will actually have an impact on when another Superman movie will be made.
According to Marc Toberoff, the attorney for Siegel and Siegel Larson, by 2013 they and the heirs of Joe Shuster will own the entire copyright to the character, which means that if a movie doesn’t get made or start production before then, Warner Bros. will have to deal with them in order to do it and not their sister company DC Comics.
Toberoff also asserted the the court
found that Warner Bros. should have paid three to four times the amount actually paid for the Superman film rights and that [it] had found it ‘inequitable’ that DC transferred the Superman film rights to Warner Bros. without the standard term providing for reversion for lack of ongoing exploitation.
As a result, the court ruled that (according to Toberoff) “if Warner Bros. does not start production on another Superman film by 2011, the Siegels will be able to sue to recover their damages.” Warner Bros. chairman Alan Horn testified during the trial that the property wasn’t currently under development and that the earliest another picture could possibly be released would be 2012.