‘Smallville’ Warner Bros Television Licensing Lawsuit Heading To Jury, Judge Rules

A jury will decide if Warner Bros Television owes the producers and creators of Smallville $100 million in damages or not. In a five-page ruling released Tuesday, Judge Michael Johnson cited a number of “triable issues” in the conflict of interest case. In doing so he rejected WBTV and other WB defendants’ motion for summary judgment over the show about the young adult Superman. The case will now likely go to trial sometime in mid-2013. In the suit, first filed in March 2010, Tollin/Robbins Productions and Smallville co-creators/writers Miles Millar and Alfred Gough claim that WBTV signed low balling licensing deals with the WB and later the CW that were not at the requisite arms-length nor conducted with the good faith that they should have been. Smallville debuted on the WB Network on October 21, 2001. It ran until May 13, 2011, ending on the CW, which itself debuted in 2006 after the merger of the WB and CBS’ UPN.  The producers and the co-creators allege that this apparent cozy relationship between different elements of the Warner Bros. corporate entity allowed the company to dramatically reduce the value of Smallville and hence their share of the show’s profits. WBTV of course disagreed and the parties have been at each other in the courts ever since. For instance, as Judge Johnson noted, “WBTV argues that Plaintiffs’ damages are speculative because they cannot establish greater profits if the Series had been ... Read More »

Source: http://www.deadline.com/2012/09/smallville-warner-bros-television-licensing-lawsuit-heading-to-jury-judge-rules-superman-the-cw-the-wb/

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