MacGruber to Bow at SXSW (But Not if MacGyver Creator Has Anything to Say About It)
The South by Southwest Film Conference has revealed the complete program for its festival commencing in March, with films by auteurs Michel Gondry (The Thorn in the Heart) and Shane Meadows (Le Donk & Scor-zay-zee) joining the previously announced opening-night blockbuster Kick-Ass and populist non-fiction fare about subjects from Bill Hicks to George Lucas. Also floating near the top of the must-see bracket is the premiere of the SNL spin-off MacGruber -- a festival coup except for the minor detail that its primary influence is trying to have it killed.
The first hints of discord between Lee Zlotoff -- who created the ingenious-inventor-adventurer hit MacGyver that the less-competent MacGruber has a parodized for three years now -- and the send-up's producers emerged earlier this week, when an insider went public with Zlotoff's plot to sue the holy hell out of Relativity Media and stop MacGruber in its tracks. A little late, though, no? Well, no, says Zlotoff, who has been developing a MacGyver feature at New Line for almost a year and who had his lawyers sending cease-and-desist love letters to Relativity (and distributor Universal) for months after MacGruber was announced.
Naturally nobody at either studio is commenting, but Zlotoff's attorney says his client is weighing options -- up to and including a copyright-infringement lawsuit and/or an injunction against the film's release on April 23. That usually translates to "we'll take a flat settlement up front and a percentage of first-dollar gross" (e.g. the Fox/Warners Watchmen kerfuffle), but parodies are generally protected under fair-use statutes (e.g. Airplane! and/or the Austin Powers franchise), so who knows? By at least one account, MacGruber in fact burnishes its source's legacy, which may be enough for a judge to recommend Zlotoff cool it. Or maybe it's the exploitive, overextended SNL sketch adaptation that will kill the lackluster subgenre once and for all. Maybe don't buy your fest tickets for this one just yet.
· 2010 Film Conference [SXSW]
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Comments
Gentleman, being a current resident of the Austin metro area, I hereby volunteer my services to go and examine this, what could only be forecast as an epic flaming pile of shit on celluloid, and report back to our faithful readers with the review it most richly deserves.
And when I say volunteer, I mean pay me. Hey, I've got 2 little hungry mouths at home to feed!
"MacGruber" is a game changer, people.
Deal with it.
I would suggest that any supporters in the MacGuyver camp have nothing to fear from the MacGruber schlubs. Having been held captive and forced to watch a few of the "episodes," I can report unequivocally that they commit the primary cardinal sin of comedy sketches. They are massively unfunny. Epically unfunny. When the Funny-O'-Meter is applied, the needle pegs to the extreme extent of unfunny, hitting the stop pin with such force as to cause the needle to wrap around said pin numerous times.
With each viewing, I prayed that the ever-present bomb would explode, delivering me once and for all from the titular character, all the while hoping against hope that whichever writers, producers and anyone else who was culpable for this bilge might become collateral damage. Sadly, it was not to be. Yet.
Meanwhile, I am left in a rather curious, uncharted circumstance for me... cheering on attorneys, in this case of the prosecutorial variety. Typically, I hold such folk in disdain below that even of insurance salesmen, TV evangelists and pretty much anyone who works at Fox Noose. But this is deservedly an exception.
Parody is a protected fair use exception to the copyright laws.
I am going to SXSW and if this movie is there I will go see it. Even if its stupid.
All their lawyers have to do is point to weird al. He gets consent cuz he is a nice guy, but he does not even have to. These guys have no case, it is a parody, get over it.
You can't sue for parody. Bad lawyer. Bad, bad, bad.
Now only if you could sue SXSW for being a self-important, overbloated corpse of its former self.
What constitutes a parody is not as simple as it would seem. Go take a look at some of the case law. Commercial works have a much more difficult time of claiming fair use as a parody.
Emulating a fictional character is not illegal, immitating is. This is emulation. The lawyer has no case.
Just to stray further into the shallow end of the pool, how hot is WIll Forte? The trailer shows his cute furry body shirtless and seemingly nude. I am so going to see this movie in March. And by "see this movie in March", of course I mean "scour the internet for captured stills this April".