If you're anything like me, you've developed a hearty case of boiling hatred for 20th Century Fox in the past week, as the studio won a ruling on Christmas declaring that Warner Bros. had infringed its copyright by developing and shooting the much-hyped Watchmen superhero flick, scheduled for release on March 6. The last we heard was that the judge had ruled that Fox is entitled to “at the very least, the right to distribute the Watchmen motion picture,” and was trying to urge both sides towards a settlement.

Well folks, even worse (but entirely predictable) news has just hit: a lawyer for Fox has said that the studio will seek an order delaying the release of the film.

Bastards.

Naturally, WB issued this statement in response to the ruling:

“We respectfully but vigorously disagree with the court’s ruling and are exploring all of our appellate options. We continue to believe that Fox’s claims have no merit and that we will ultimately prevail, whether at trial or in the Court of Appeals.”

In other words, a settlement is entirely unlikely, and the appeals process is going to take forever. A Jan. 20 trial date has been set to decide remaining issues and hopefully settle the delay option, but it boils down to this: if WB throws a spandex-clad middle finger to the sky and sticks with the 3/6/09 release date, they're likely to have their asses handed to them in court, and will be forking over massive stacks in the future.

Warner Bros. claims it’s an opportunistic suit by Fox, while Fox claims WB's history of disregarding film properties speaks for itself. Warner Bros won't agree to a payoff, and Fox has no plans to let shit roll and fight over the corn and peanut chunks later.

Add to the mix the fact that Paramount, who's already locked the international distribution rights, doesn't want to lose any more profits than they have to in this mess, and you've got a hell of a clusterf*ck.

It should be noted that back in August, when a judge denied WB's motion to dismiss the case, Fox's legal team claimed that their interests aren't financial (wtf?) and that their goal was to stop the movie's release altogether. But being that they didn't try to stop Zack Snyder from running with production on the film, the entire thing just reeks of power-flex studio sabotage.

At this rate, we'll be lucky to see Watchmen released at all in 2009.

Come on, Fox. Don't make us boycott the Wolverine flick just to spite you. We're really excited for that one.

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