It's Official: I Hate Fox

As you can tell from the title of this post, I hate 20th Century Fox.

Just like any other distributor, they've put out their classics, such as Tora! Tora! Tora! and When Harry Met Sally. They've also put out their share of cult and nerd films, the greatest of which being the fantastic Star Wars series. And, they've had their bombs and stinkers, like Elektra and Guess Who?

But one ability that Fox has that no other distributor does, is the ability to take a great story or franchise and completely corrupt and rape it into an unrecognizable hunk of cinema drivel. Don't believe me? Take for example the upcoming Dragonball film. It was once a cult-favorite cartoon, beloved by us nerds everywhere. But once Fox got it in their claw-like hands they shaped it into a candy-pop, ADD-fueled, money-grubbing whore-fest-- or at least that's how it looks from the trailers.

Now they've got their grubby paws on one of my favorite comic-book planned adaptations: Watchmen. For the past six months, Fox has been battling it out with Warner Brothers studios for the release rights to Watchmen. See, several years ago, Terry Gilliam and Fox owned the rights to the Watchmen film while Warner Brothers was partnered to DC Comics. Gilliam's version of Watchmen strayed in production hell for years and eventually fell through. Due to a lack of communication between the two studios, Warner ended up picking up the film as the distributor and continued production. Because Warner is partnered to DC, the studio just assumed that they had the rights to make the film.

Well, you know what they say-- to ASSUME is to make an ASS out of U and ME.

Nine grueling months of Zack Snyder and Company's hard work and millions of dollars later, Fox announced that they actually owned the distribution rights and that they wanted to go to court.

And to court they went. For months, the two studios battled it out over the distribution rights. Fox announced that if they were granted the rights, that they intended on shelving the film. Needless to say, this did not please the nerd community. They-- or I should say, we-- declared that we would boycott 2009 Fox films, such as Dragonball, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and Streetfighter: the Legend of Chun-Li. After hearing this threat, Fox realized how serious us nerds are about our comic-book adaptations and decided that they would not shelve the product, but instead would push back the release date.

We could settle for that. But that was only if they actually got the release rights.

Now, fast forward to last week. It was announced that the judge ruled in favor of Fox and permitted them the release rights to Watchmen-- every Watchmen fan died a little on the inside. Upon this announcement, Fox proclaimed that they would be pushing back the release date until they could finish editing the film to their satisfaction. Then, every Watchmen fan's head exploded in rage.

For those of you who aren't aware, Fox has a nasty history of changing up comic adaptations. They don't stay true to the original, they manipulate characters beyond recognition, and instead of sticking true to the story, they end up vying for a "feel good" ending. This means that, more than likely, they will decided to edit or completely rewrite the end of the legendary Watchmen comic in order to satisfy the sheep-like masses.

What just frustrates me is that Zack Snyder worked his ass off to make this film amazing and right at the end, they snatch it away from him in order to corrupt it into something terrible. It's like taking candy from a baby and then using the candy to choke a kid with down-syndrome and then using the kid's body to crush some innocent kittens. It's just horrible.

So there's my rant for the day. I hate Fox. Hate. Them. My hate for Fox, actually exceeds my hate for Hannah Montana right now. And that's a white-hot hate all it's own. The only, the only way this could be worse was if they recast the characters in the last few scenes with the cast of High School Musical and then allow the Jonas Brothers to direct. That is the only way this situation could get worse.

Or maybe I'm overreacting. Maybe Fox won't do such a bad job. I'll say my prayers at night that they won't. That's all we can do...watch, wait, and pray.