Will A Lawsuit Kill ‘The Crow’?
A battle is brewing overThe Crow. Producer Edward R. Pressman has been working for over a year to assemble a new Crow film with Relativity Media. Of late,Bradley Cooperhas beenin early talks to starwithJuan Carlos Fresnadillodirecting.
But Harvey Weinstein has entered the picture, claiming that he has a contract “signed by everybody” that gives The Weinsteins worldwide distribution rights forThe Crow. TWC has filed a lawsuit against Ryan Kavanaugh’s Relativity Media to stop any attempt to see distribution rights to other parties. What effect will this have on the film?
Deadlineis all giddy over the news, saying that the two companies have negotiated back and forth over the issue before TWC filed the lawsuit today. Bert Fields, legal rep for the Weinsteins, said,
The better bit is that the Weinsteins don’t have any explanation as to why Relativity thinks it has the rights to the film, nor does Deadline. We’re just getting one side of the story here, so I expect there will be more statements to come.
What will be the effect on the film, which was planned for a fall shoot? In any normal situation the two companies would probably come to a deal and things would just move forward. This is one mega-producer against another, however, so I won’t claim to know what other layers exist in this power play.
More than likely we’ll still see a newCrownext year, but if that idea doesn’t sound very appealing, this is your chance to hold out hope that the law will ground it.
Update:Relativity has issued the following statement:
Clearly this is a feeble attempt to create a press stir and a malicious effort to interfere with Relativity’s development of the project.
