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Warner Bros. Discovery and DC Comics file for dismissal of a pending lawsuit regarding Superman in film.
Per Variety, Warner Bros. Discovery and DC Comics filed a motion to dismiss on Wednesday, March 5, in the hopes of dismissing the pending lawsuit brought about by Mark Peary, nephew of the late Superman co-creator Joe Shuster. Peary’s suit was filed in January, and seeks to invalidate Warner Bros. Discovery and DC Studios’ Superman copyrights in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and Ireland. The motion to dismiss alleges that Peary’s mother, Jean Peavy, signed away the rights to Superman in 1992, shortly after Shuster’s passing that same year.
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Studio attorney Daniel Petrocelli said of the case, “Peary’s complaint fails on every ground.” Petrocelli elaborated, “There are no carve-outs in the controlling 1992 agreement for any foreign copyrights, much less for the copyrights in the 10 countries Peary now alleges in the Complaint.” While Peary’s estate lawyer, Marc Toberoff, has argued that the overseas copyright assignments for Superman should have been terminated after 25 years under the Berne Convention, to which the United States is a signatory, Petrocelli noted that the Berne Convention is not enforceable in U.S. courts largely due to a lack of jurisdiction.
Warner Bros. Discovery has argued that the Shuster estate’s claims have previously been denied in by a federal judge, a ruling that was upheld in 2013 by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeal. This is just one of many details regarding the rights to Superman that the studio has laid out, beginning with Joe Shuster and fellow co-creator Jerome Siegel selling the rights to the character all the way back in 1938 for the then seemingly tidy sum of $130. Following Shuster’s death, his sister Jean negotiated increased survivor payments of $25,000 per month for the rest of her life, along with DC Comics taking on any of the creator’s remaining debts, an agreement acknowledged as fully settling “all claims” regarding the estate’s copyright and trademark claims.
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Should the case against Warner Bros. Discovery and DC Studios move forward, it could impede the upcoming release of the next Superman feature film, which is set to officially kick off Gunn and Safran’s ten-year, two-part plan for the future of the DC Universe on the silver screen. The film will mark the debut of David Corenswet as the Man of Steel, along with the debuts of Anthony Carrigan, Edi Gathegi, Isabela Merced, María Gabriela de Faría, and Nathan Fillion as Metamorpho, Mister Terrific, Hawkgirl, The Engineer, and the Green Lantern Corps’ very own Guy Gardner, respectively. Apart from the film’s superpowered cast, Superman stars Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane and Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor, Wendell Pierce as Perry White, and Skyler Gisondo as Jimmy Olsen, rounding out Metropolis’ most iconic set of characters.
Superman is set to soar into theaters everywhere on July 11.
Source: Variety
“}]] Warner Bros. Discovery files a motion of dismissal for a lawsuit regarding the film rights to Superman in Canada and other international markets. Read More