Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
Well, I must have gotten someone's attention.
This morning, as I was driving to a meeting in Santa Monica, the phone rang. Checked the caller ID. "GRANDE ROJO." So of course I picked up, and it's Harry, asking me if Fox has been in touch yet.
"Uhhhh... no. Are they going to be?" Turns out, they contacted Roland, our business guy, to pass along the good ol' cease-and-desist. Now, this is a sticky area because although I discussed their work, I did not actually publish their work, a distinction some people seem to miss. Discussion of anything is fair game. Fox seemed particularly upset, though, saying that it was unfair of us to review a first draft, and that they aren't even sure they're going to make or release the film right now. Of course, they announced a release date for next summer, which would suggest that they have to start filming soon, and I seriously doubt they're going to redevelop the entire property from zero at this point.
But, hey... let it never be said that (A) Fox doesn't pay attention and (B) that we are unreasonable. I consider the article to have served its purpose at this point... based on the response here and on other message boards, its pretty clear that fandom doesn't want what Fox is selling in this particular case, and if that means Fox goes away to try and come up with another premise, that can only be a good thing. And if the film does finally get released looking exactly like the script I reviewed, then Fox won't be able to claim that they didn't realize how terribly out of touch with fandom they are.
So, Fox... if you're reading this (and I know you are), consider us ceased and desisted, and here's hoping you're hard at work making the entire review a moot point right now.
"Moriarty" out.
