Hey... Maybe no one is at liberty to discuss this, but what actions are being taken in this legal battle with Fox? Will the film be retitled if the suit is lost, or will the film be swept under the rug? Will this alter the Asylum business model?
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Well, I am not a big fan of fox, but these guys need to call it quits, not only are there products an insult to cinema, but their mentality, their method of working, is also an insult to cinema.
They make movies for those VERY VERY casual cinemagoers, who don't deserve to be catered to int he first place.
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What makes the big budget counterpart of this any better exactly? What's so great about the Keanu Reeves abomination.
"And if this does go sour for The Asylum will this be the end of the mockbuster? Will they - god forbid - be forced to produce original films based on original ideas?"
Well, if Fox doesn't have to make original films based on original ideas then why do others? The Day the Earth Stood Still is just a rip off remake, so I think it's very hypocritical for them to be so upset about this. Sure, they own the rights to the original, but theirs' is just a remake which; from the looks of it; shows very little respect for the real one. So what's the big deal? It's just a lot of bitching and moaning.
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Note to FOX - why are you turkeys wasting money suing the Asylum Studios in the first place? All that's going to do is reduce your potential profit from your movie. You actually, seriously consider "Stopped", a low-budget, "B"-movie-level "Mockbuster", to be a legitimate threat to your mega-million-dollar-budgeted Keanu-ized "Stood Still"? No offence, but the guys at FOX are all a bunch of Chicken Littles. Happy Thanksgiving, losers.
Please let me know if there's some other way we can screw up tonight.
William Shatner, Star Trek 6
Major studios don't sue because The Asylum are not threatening. It's not like this movie will make more money than Fox's remake. If it did, then yes, there will be a lawsuit.
For DEMONIC TOYS and updates on Full Moon Films:
www.freewebs.com/demonictoys/
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Wow. Do you not realize how fascistic that statement is? Who gets to say who "deserves" to have movies made for them? You?
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Oh yes thats right, lets use a term to describe the institution that started ww2 which lead to the loss of over 90 million lifes, the same group of people who created death camps to describe someone who dislikes casual movie watchers.
Your an idiot dude
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So anyway....
It'll be interesting to see how this pans out. I'm sure both sides will lawyer their way through the whole proceedings, but I suspect Fox might lose this one. I would like to point out to the poster who said that Fox are no better than The Asylum that Fox legally own the rights to The Day The Earth Stood Still, ergo their remake is legally legit. Still, its not as if The Asylum are making a carbon copy either.
There's precedent for studios stomping out percieved ripoffs of their films, such as Universal's succesful legal action against the Itallian-produced Jaws knock-off Great White (still unavailable in the US), and Warner's lawsuit against AIP's Exorcist-clone Abby, which kept the film out of circulation for several years. So I guess we'll see...
"Oh, I did my thesis on life experience." - Anonymous Harvard Guy, The Simpsons.
You win at life. I despise it when people have overblown reactions, making it seem like a simple comment is such huge thing.
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Oh yes thats right, lets use a term to describe the institution that started ww2 which lead to the loss of over 90 million lifes, the same group of people who created death camps to describe someone who dislikes casual movie watchers.
Your an idiot dude
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It always cracks me up when people who can't spell or use punctuation properly call people out for being "idiots"...
Not to mention totally going off-topic by bringing up facism and its negative effect on humanity...
Thanks for the lesson, dude.
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Fox NEWS is an evil company. 20 Century Fox & Fox Atomic is the *beep*
link: http://www.myspace.com/pkgangsta18
So you are saying you are on the side of an evil company - that would make you evil then, right?
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Lets nuke the site from orbit - its the only way to be sure.
It's not like this is the first time this has happened. When big movies like this come out, other companies often make cheap, lame ripoffs because as bad as they are they make money either by getting people's interest or people simply renting them by mistake.
Transformers had a movie made called Transmorphers with the very same concept. There's been plenty of others.
And Transmorphers was made by the same company as The Day the Earth Stopped. For other Asylum cash-ins, see Snakes on a Train, Sunday School Musical, I Am Omega, Allan Quatermain and the Temple of Skulls, Alien Vs Hunter, Death Racers, The Pirates of Treasure Island, 100 Million BC, The Da Vinci Treasure...
If only they put as much effort into the actual films!
"Oh, I did my thesis on life experience." - Anonymous Harvard Guy, The Simpsons.
Ferget it. I like sci-fi.
shareI know the legally have the right to remake it because they own the rights. But it is incredibly hypocritical to complain about your movie being ripped off when your movie is just a ripoff to begin with.
shareIf you purchase the rights to a story, it isn't what you would call "ripping it off." Sure it isn't original, but then again nothing is these days, and I'm personally fine with that. I think FOX has every right to sue these characters and their fly-by-night film company for taking advantage of the casual movie goer. These guys are snake oil salesmen of the film industry! Get a real job and stop misleading people in order to take their money.
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The hunger has returned to Mr. Brooks brain.
It never really left.
Remakes are not a new phenomenon anyway. Some classic films are remakes (or reworkings) of earlier movies. There are film versions of The Wizard of Oz, Ben Hur, The Maltese Falcon and Frankenstein that pre-date their more famous cousins. Ripoffs and cash-ins have been around just as long, viz Nosferatu, an unauthorised adaptation of Dracula. Sure, it's now a well renowned classic, but the Stoker still sued for plagiarism and won.
The grindhouse ripoff has often veered from the "superficially similar subject matter" type of innumerable Roger Corman films (Death Race 2000 = Rollerball, Carnosaur = Jurassic Park), to the all those itallian Mad Max/Dawn of the Dead/Exorcist/Terminator imitations (one was even titled "Terminator II" and released a full year before the real thing!) and now, the blatant cash-in mentality of The Asylum, which is probably more noticable than either of the other two forms because its more recent and (thanks to the internet) more easily publicised.
We can split hairs about the morality of remakes versus the morality of ripoffs, but this is a legal issue now and frankly, I'm kind of more on Fox's side. Just because one is huge and the other is a pissant z-movie house doesn't mean the law should turn a blind eye to such blatantly deceptive marketing.
"Oh, I did my thesis on life experience." - Anonymous Harvard Guy, The Simpsons.
I never said, "remakes are new, nobody made them before this decade." They've been around for over 100 years, but that doesn't excuse the current rash of blatant remakes. The is a difference with some of the examples you have given though. For one thing the James Whale version of Frankenstein IS in fact original, as it was the first faithful, appropriately titled, feature length film version of the Mary Shelley story. Also, Nosferatu is a totally different story, as it was the first ever adaptation to film of the Dracula story. Also, it was Bram Stoker's wife (he was dead already) that didn't allow them the rights to the story, and subsequently sued Murnau and co. However, when they made the film, it was the first time it had been done. As for the Wizard of Oz, the mostly short, some feature, silent films that were made by L. Frank Baum were obviously made first. This makes the Judy Garland version more of a remake, and less original than the other examples here. But since each of the earlier films generally focused on book, or part of one book, and the 1925 feature film had essentially nothing to do with the books at all; in that way the 1939 version is set apart because it is sort of an adaptation of the overall story, in a way, which wasn't done before. But I would agree that it is just as unoriginal because it was one in a very VERY long list of film versions of Baum's writing.
As for Ben Hur and The Maltese Falcon; yes those are remakes. And it does take something away from the more celebrated version in my eyes. The original Ben Hur was a silent picture, which does not excuse remaking it, but may explain it. And the original The Maltese Falcon was made just 10 years prior to the Bogart version, so I guess the reasoning for that was that the original was very good, but had no big stars and made just a little bit of money, so it was seen as an oppurtunity to cash in something most people didn't know about but was very good already.
The difference between remakes then and now, is that in the time of the 20s 30s 40s 50s and even the 60s, there was not much of a respect for film history. There was no way to watch movies at home, so when a film was made people would see it, it might run for a year or two in theaters, and then the general audience may never see or hear about it again. So those remakes were made because the studio had rights to a good story. They didn't remake films all the time, and they didn't try to use the old film to promote the new one. Now it is being done because the original films were successful, and because the absurd remake trend has proven to be financially viable. I'm sure that the original The Day the Earth Stood Still is going to get some special edition DVD when the remake is released and all of that all too typical stuff that happens each time that they bastardize a classic will all happen again this time.
Anyway...
I understand that legally Fox has the right to remake the movie, because Fox was the studio that produced the original film and all that...I just think that this remake trend is dispicable. From all of the information I have gotten (trailers, commercials, articles, interviews) this remake has very little respect for the original, and sort of goes against a lot of what made the original special. If they are not showing the proper respect to their property, and ripping it off shamelessly, I don't see any reason that their version is better, morally, than the Asylum version.
I know, I know....It's a legal matter. Legal matters aside, I think Fox should be ashamed of themselves for their hypocrisy of criticizing a ripoff of their own shameless ripoff.
While I have a huge problem with these studio remakes, I think exploitation rip offs are ok, personally. You mentioned Roger Corman, who has made his fair share of ripoffs, and I don't see anything wrong with it. These are exploitation movies. Whether they exploit a popular film, or a popular topic, or just blood, tits, and ass; I don't care. Nobody takes them seriously.
In a legal sense, I suppose Fox has a case. In a moral sense, I don't think
they do at all.
EDIT: I also originally used this quote "And if this does go sour for The Asylum will this be the end of the mockbuster? Will they - god forbid - be forced to produce original films based on original ideas?"
It was taken from an on line article about this legal battle. It sums up my feelings about this whole thing. The writer clearly has no knowledge of film history, and if he had he would have understood the irony of such an idiotic comment.
jebus write a book about it why don't you.
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Actually James Whale's fantastic 'Frankenstein' was not the original, nor the first faithful to the book adaptation of Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus'(it's not very faithful anyway...good does not equal faithful), Edison Company's 'Frankenstein' though short was reasonably faithful to the book and if I remember it was from 1910.
"Nothings gonna change my world!"
I have never found the Edison company Frankenstein. Where is it? Where can I find it? Why isn't it on IMDB? It may exist, but in all of my studies of the Edison company I never came across it. So it can't be considered here if you can't provide any record.
But even so, that doesn't refute what I said, as the Whale Frankenstein would still be the first FEATURE length, faithful, properly titled version of the Mary Shelley story.
I have never found the Edison company Frankenstein. Where is it? Where can I find it? Why isn't it on IMDB? It may exist, but in all of my studies of the Edison company I never came across it. So it can't be considered here if you can't provide any record.
I certainly wouldn't deny that I am lazy, but Edison is not credited anywhere. I had this argument elsewhere when somebody said Edison produced it, so that's my mistake for aguing the wrong argument in the wrong argument. My mistake.
My point stands though.
Still shows your laziness on the wikipedia articles it was it was made by the Edison company and this article says so as well http://www.filmbuffonline.com/Features/EdisonsFrankenstein1.htm
and a quote: "One of the most sought after short films by fans of the silent era is the 1910 production of Frankenstein from Thomas Edison’s Edison Studios."
Right....I admitted I was lazy, admitted I was wrong, and told you why I confused arguing that Edison didn't produce it himself vs. saying that it wasn't the Edison company. Why repeat you point when it's already been dealt with?
Anyway, my point still stands...
I just misread your post it was Edison's company it wasn't Edison, and according to Wikipedia he wasn't really involved as a producer
shareNo, it was my fault. I mixed this up with another argument. I said "the edison company" when I meant Edison as a producer.
Anyway...
What does Edison's remake have to do with this film company being sued?
The Asylum deserves to be sued. They don't deserve to make money off of people's stupidity.
And they know they're making terrible low budget films while blatently ripping off other films just so they can mke money off of it by tricking people at the video store.
They don't deserve to be a company. If they want to do spoofs, that's something different. That's not what they do. A spoof would be something like Scary Movie and even those are terrible.
They make cheap watered down rip offs of successful films. They should at least get the rights to do that but insead they just bootleg.
They make cheap watered down rip offs of successful films. They should at least get the rights to do that but insead they just bootleg.
Here's the difference in my opinion.
Whether or not you agree with or like the film remake "The Day The Earth Stood Still," it was made by a company that owned the rights to the story. If they didn't own the rights prior to production, they would have paid for and acquired the rights to the story. They spent money developing, producing, and marketing the film. That's the business they are in. Some movies they make, I would guess, you like. Some movies they make, not so much, but that is the industry and the studio system and thats how it works. It employs a lot of people and they make a living supporting families, etc. I only mention that because I think people have a tendency to think of a corporation like Fox as a handful of wealthy industrialists and forget about the thousands of people they employ.
Asylum on the other hand is a tiny company run by a handful of people who also make a good living. Probably not as much as those who run Fox, but they do well. Everyone below them, however makes next to nothing. The galling thing to me is that Asylum's business model is to exploit the marketing campaign of the company they are ripping off by making the title and or material nearly identical to the original material in terms of concept, and at best trying to capitalize on a curious consumer, and at worst deceive an unwary consumer by releasing the material simultaneously with the material it attempts to steal from.
Corman used to attempt to capitalize on trends and genres, but to the best of my knowledge he never used titles of scripts that were deceptive and/or legally dubious. Corman developed his own trademark, in a sense, and often sold his product as a low budget artistic endeavor. And besides all that, Asylum makes Corman look like Cecil B. Demille.
I know that "Transmorphers" and "Transformers" sound alike and "Snakes on a Train" and "Snakes on a Plane" rhyme, but everyone from my 9 year old niece to my retired parents can tell the rip-offs from the originals at the video store. People get these movies because they're impatient to wait for enough copies of the original, not because they're confused. At our local video stores they always point out "this isn't the >insert name star here< version" if someone picks up an Asylum movie.
shareAll that's well and good, but as far as I've seen, Asylum also uses DVD covers and title fonts that are far too similar to the ones for the official movies they're ripping off, and very often people will just scan the boxes looking for the picture and/or title, grab it off the shelf and go because they're in a hurry.
Especially with a similar cover picture, when you're scanning titles in a bit of a hurry, chances are you're going to read at most "The Day the Earth..." then pick it up and move on.
Those are the people Asylum is aiming for.
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If it's tourist season, why can't we shoot them?
But is that wrong? Whose fault is it that these consumers didn't do their homework?
Are you claiming that they are being deceived? The front of the dvd shows artwork of a giant robot in the middle of a city. Does the movie have a giant robot in the middle of a city? Yes, actually many cities.
The back cover says that "massive intergalactic robots have invaded the world's major cities. With humankind on the brink of chaos, a beautiful alien messenger, Sky, revelas to Josh Myron (C. Thomas Howell, Hidalgo) the robots' ultimatum: the value of human life must be proved before sunset, or humanity will be destroyed forever." Is that what we get in the movie? Definitely.
So in what way is the dvd trying to defraud consumers?
I for one purchased this one knowing full well it's based on The Day The Earth Stood Still. I have both versions of TDTESS and I liked all three movies and in no way do I feel like I've been scammed and don't see how anyone could think they've been scammed.
Legally, no, I'm pretty sure it's not wrong, in the strictest sense of the word. And by legally I mean using visually similar cover art and title fonts.
Ethically however, in that regard they're on really shaky ground.
As for the story itself, yes, I'm pretty sure the point is that they're legally doing something wrong. This isn't an entirely different movie with the same basic concept, (like Armageddon and Deep Impact, two movies with the same concept but completely different in execution), this is borderline plagiarism, with only a few minor details changed to avoid being outright plagiarism. The same goes for almost all of Asylum's movies.
That's why they were sued in the first place.
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If it's tourist season, why can't we shoot them?
Ideas, concepts cannot be copyrighted. Look it up. Asylum Films can only be sued if they use the same dialogue and exact plot elements, characters. There is no law against be unoriginal.
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