I Love You Phillip Morris' New Likely Release Date: Never

I remember January 15, 2009, like it was yesterday -- the first day of the Sundance Film Festival, where filmmakers Glenn Ficarra and John Requa had just checked in at fest headquarters and seated themselves in the industry lounge for a morning snack. They had brought with them their directorial debut and arguably Sundance's biggest bidding-war candidate, I Love You Phillip Morris. I watched them field one phone call, then another, then depart almost as quickly as they arrived, thinking the filmmakers were at the hectic beginning of everyone's festival dream. Instead, as a new court ruling suggests, it was the first day of their worst nightmare.

A California District Court judge this week issued an injunction against the release of the Jim Carrey/Ewan McGregor prison romance, for which its putative distributor Consolidated Pictures Group allegedly failed to pay its $3 million guarantee. The claim has dogged Consolidated for nearly a year, overshadowing four different release dates and now nudging it off the release calendar entirely until producer EuropaCorp gets paid. At this point, however -- with months of courtroom wrangling covering the litigation spectrum from copyright infringement to breach of contract -- the French production company would happily rescind its "three easy installments" payment plan to get the Phillip Morris rights back and put the whole sordid mess to bed.

First, however, they face arbitration, where Consolidated's lawyers expect to triumph. Though the film's Web site was taken down and its release date was moved from July 30 to the slightly vaguer "TBD," the distributor reportedly plans to have the case resolved and the film in theaters by October. But the arbitration may not even happen until August, which wouldn't likely allow time to promote the film in a way that fulfills the contract's likely marketing obligations.

So we're back to square one -- or rather square two. I'm pretty sure square one is where Ficarra and Requa might wish they were right now. Sure, they'd need their parkas, but Park City in January is still a hell of a lot warmer than this freeze-out. Sad.

· Court halts 'I Love You Phillip Morris' release! Will the movie ever come out? [THR, Esq.]