Five weeks from today, Lee Daniels‘ follow-up to The Paperboy will be arriving in theaters, but the people behind the scenes are still quarreling over what it will be called. Warner Bros. recently, and somewhat shockingly, won a case in which they assert that The Weinstein Company is breaking the law by calling the film The Butler, as it’s the name of one of their 1916 short films. While anyone that takes a first glance at their actions can easily see this is about as petty as cases come, some new information has come to light regarding the possible reasons behind their lawsuit.
Speaking with CBS News this morning, Harvey Weinstein says WB’s quarreling has to do with rights to The Hobbit. THR digs deeper revealing that while at Miramax, the Weinsteins controlled The Lord of the Rings and with last year’s prequel, and presumably the next two entries, they have at least 2.5% of the first-dollar grosses. This adds up to a pretty penny when we are talking billions of dollars, and could certainly be a reason why WB still wants to stick it to them in this silly dispute, despite the studio denying such claims.
As one can see in the video below, Weinstein says, “122 times in the history of movies, titles have been used and repeated. And our understanding with Warner Bros. was that this was just going to be the simple process that it always is. Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy have a movie out called The Heat. Jason Statham is shooting a movie called Heat, Bob De Niro and Al Pacino made a movie called Heat and ten years before that Burt Reynolds made a movie called Heat. And Unstoppable has been done five times.” Check out his interview, as well as the first clip from the film, and let us know what you think of the dispute in the comments.
The Butler (or whatever it will be called) opens on August 16th.
Do you think WB is in the wrong here? If they win, what should the new title be?