Who Watches the Lawmen?

I’m not what you would call a comic book geek.  I respect the form and its fans, and I enjoy the stories when packaged in collections, but I never had the attention span to stick with anything published in serialized format.

However, I just finished Watchmen.  Accordingly, I am psyched for the film, and have spent far too much time today browsing for acclaim for the novel and spoilers for the movie (ironically, I apparently need to prepare myself to be disappointed with the inconsistencies to be truly excited about it).

To bring this back on topic: most fans of the novel who have been following the production of the movie probably knew about the massive copyright battle that took place between Warner Bros. and Fox concerning production and release of this film.  Wikipedia, as usual, has a decent summary:

On February 14, 2008, 20th Century Fox brought a lawsuit against Warner Bros. that alleged copyright infringement on the Watchmen film property. The studio believed that it retained the rights to produce the film, or at least distribute it, no matter how many studios Watchmen has passed through, and sought to block its release. Warner Bros. said that Fox has repeatedly failed to exercise its rights over various incarnations of the production.

Long story short: The dispute went to court.  The trial court ruled that Fox did, indeed, own the relevant rights, and Fox stated their intention to seek an order delaying or preventing the release of the film.  Fans freaked out to a certain extent, worried that this eagerly anticipated film might never see the light of day.

However, when you looked at the overall picture, it was clear that outcome would never happen.  Some off-the-cuff armchair analysis of why I think so after the jump.