Studios Could Lose Rights To ROBOCOP, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, BEETLEJUICE and More if Deals Aren't Made with Creators
There are a few studios that are currently on the verge of losing the rights to some of their popular properties. Warner Bros. is facing the loss of A Nightmare on Elm Street, Beetlejuice, and Little Shop of Horrors. MGM could lose RoboCop, and Disney has properties like Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and Mrs. Doubtfire on the chopping block.
WB is now in the process of negotiating to keep the domestic rights to these properties, which are facing Copyright termination, and the other studios will have to try and make deals as well if they don’t want to lose them.
Under the Copyright Act of 1978, the creators who transferred their copyright to another person or entity can petition to terminate it after 28 years. That’s what these franchises are facing. Things can get a bit muddy with this as most corporations successfully argue that these kinds of works were made for hire, meaning that the company is the original creator, and the writer or artist never really held the rights to sell.
This news comes from a report at Puck, which says the rights terminations are a “ticking timebomb for studios” and they thrive off of big IPs with sequels, spinoffs, and remakes. These things are generating hundreds of millions of dollars and they don’t want to lose that.
The report uses RoboCop as an example of what can happen under these circumstances:
The classic 1987 action satire was based on an original screenplay by Ed Neumeier and Michael Miner, who sold it to producer Jon Davison, who sold it to Orion Pictures, which made the movie with director Paul Verhoeven. Orion was then acquired by MGM, which made a bad Robocop reboot in 2014 and has contemplated doing a TV version. I’m sure Amazon would welcome that series as part of its effort to mine the MGM library for Prime Video. But… Robocop is up for termination this summer, and I’m told Neumeier and Miner will terminate if there’s no deal. MGM isn’t contesting their right, but it’s a tricky negotiation. In this era of skyrocketing I.P. value and seemingly insatiable streaming services (not to mention the relevance of the story of a militarized and automated police force in a totalitarian regime), how much are the Robocop U.S. rights actually worth? What kind of deal can a writer negotiate? Is it just money, or can they get themselves involved creatively on a new version?
Moss has been consulting with Neumeier and Miner on this case, and their argument is that the U.S. rights drive the rest of the world, so if MGM doesn’t step up, another bidder could nab Robocop in the U.S. and benefit from whatever Amazon decides to do with the property. That’s particularly resonant for a global platform like Prime Video. It’ll be interesting to see what happens there.
This comes as Neumeier has been developing a RoboCop prequel series with writers Dave Parkin and Rob Gibbs that would focus on a young Dick Jones, the villainous and corrupt Senior Vice President of Omni Consumer Products. There is also a new sequel for the original film that’s in development. So, it seems it would be in the best interest of MGM to negotiate a deal if they want to be a part of these projects.
This is an interesting time for actual creators as they are now in a position to negotiate a deal with studios. It’ll be interesting to see how the studios actually handle this “ticking timebomb” situation.