Legendary's BUCK ROGERS Project Gets a Cease and Desist Letter From the Buck Rogers Estate
It looks like there’s some drama brewing between Legendary Entertainment and the Buck Rogers estate. As you know, Legendary has been developing a series adaptation of Buck Rogers with George Clooney. This is a project that a lot of fans have been excited about.
Well, it turns out the Buck Rogers estate isn’t happy, and they shot a cease and desist letter over to Legendary about its recent announcement that it was developing a TV adaptation of the sci-fi property. According to the estate, “the Buck Rogers interests have already penned an agreement with David Ellison’s Skydance Productions to exploit the property.” Per their attorney:
“Be advised that the Buck Rogers Interests have signed an agreement with Skydance Productions LLC to produce Buck Rogers content.
“Your conduct is a slander of title of the rights the Buck Rogers Interests own. Demand is made that you correct the record publicly as Legendary/Murphy have no chain of title. You are directed to advise all third parties, including any insurers, distributors, and financiers that there is no chain of title held by Legendary/Murphy.
“We note that the litigious Mr. Murphy has lost every legal maneuver he has so far attempted.”
In regards to that last statement against producer Don Murphy, Deadline notes that “it should be stated that a previous Buck Rogers rights action that involved Murphy as a defendant was dismissed in 2019.”
So, it seems there are two Buck Rogers projects currently in development. One at Legendary and one at Skydance. Legendary has no plans of backing down, though. They shared the following statement:
“We have secured the rights we need to proceed with our project and the company will not comment any further on these baseless claims. This same party has been claiming for years that they have rights which they do not have and have been trying to inhibit projects based on rights they do not legally control.”
Well, it’ll be interesting to see if Legendary ends up going to court over this. They seem pretty confident that they have nothing to worry about and that they have the rights to the property that they need to proceed.