It seems that Bradley Cooper is going to have to wait to put on that white face paint for director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's remake of The Crow.
A war of words (and litigation) has begun between producer Edward R. Pressman and Relativity Media and The Weinsteins Company. Attorney Bert Fields is representing Harvey and Bob Weinstein's company against Ryan Kavanaugh's company, seeking injunctive relief and claiming there's "a written contract signed by everybody," giving the Weinsteins exclusive worldwide distribution rights on The Crow reboot.
The original film was directed by Alex Proyas and distributed by the Weinsteins at Miramax back in 1994, grossing $50.6 million dollars domestically. Deadline has been following the exchange carefully and reports that "The Weinsteins and [Ryan] Kavanaugh went back and forth on a number of issues before the lawsuit was filed Wednesday afternoon (4/20)."
While the Weinsteins don't have any factual explanation as to why Relativity thinks it has the rights to the James O'Barr comic book series, the owners of Rogue Pictures issued the following statement:
This is yet another typical litigation stunt from the Weinsteins, who have a long history of threatening law suits with the sole purpose of intimidation. If served, Relativity will seek immediate dismissal. While we expect these types of antics from the Weinsteins, we are shocked that a lawyer of Mr. Fields’ caliber would make such false, reckless and intentionally harmful statements to the press about Relativity and Mr. Kavanaugh. We intend to seek appropriate remedies for this misconduct.
What does this mean for The Crow which was planned for a fall shoot? With two megapowered production houses against one another, there's no telling what other layers exists in all this hoopla!
[via Deadline]
