‘Watchmen’ settlement getting closer?

Ah, the post-holiday slump. Retailers are retrenching, publishers are getting ready for announcements at NYCC– some days it seems if it wasn’t for Watchmen news, we’d have no news at all. Luckily, we keep getting more of that.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Fox and Warner Bros. are letting it leak that they are “close” to reaching a settlement in their dispute over rights to Zack Snyder’s Watchmen movie that will allow Warners to release the film as planned on March 6th.  Lawyers for Fox and Warners met Monday in the chambers of Federal Judge Gary Feess.  Warner Bros., which has already spent at least $150 million to produce the Watchmen movie, has evidently dropped its request that Judge Feess move up the January 20th injunction hearing.

What’s the best sign of progress? Commercials. Warner Bros. rolled out TV ads for the movie this weekend, still sticking to the March 6th release date– ironically, on the Fox network’s Sunday’s season premiere of 24.