Rights to Movie Names (Part II)

We happened to have an Intellectual Property attorney at one of our monthly local filmmakers group meeting, and this was one of the comment question she mentioned, there is no 'copyright' on movie titles, but however, the major studio would come after you if you movie is 'banking' off their titles. Or misleading the general public that your movie is 'part' of their film.

At this meeting, one other question, raised, at many indie filmmaking shoot, we always were told to not to have any name brand shown, that's not the case, it's all about the content of the scene or the movie itself, it's totally ok to have name brand shown as long as the named brand is not used or to be used to promote the film, yes, you still might get a letter from the name brand company but you most likely have to prove that your situation is legit and that the use of the name brand is not of anyway helping to promote the movie. (sensitive thing).

Then please explain "Halloween III: Season of the Witch" relates to Michael Myers.

It's the "II" that's going to come back to bite you, because it infers that there is a connection between your production and the previous film.

Ironically you'd be in a better position if you just called your film "Talk Radio" ... the only thing is, distributors will probably want to alter the name to avoid confusion. It may work against, you rather than for you because it raises potential problems for the distributor.

Imagine if you are a distributor, you are paying for printing and artwork. Are you going to run the risk of having to take a hit on trashing a whole production run or having the product withdrawn from sales outlets whilst the courts make a ruling. without any of those being a reality, these have to be the thoughts going through any distributor's head. Whether it's legal or not isn't the issue - the issue is whether it's going cost money in court ot establish the right to distribute. It's one of those cases where even the threat of legal complications is going to kill the project stone dead. As a businessman, it's not a risk I'd take.

It seems to me that the real issue is that you're not happy with "AM/FM." My suggestion is to keep hunting for an original title. On my current project I've already gone through fifteen differnt titles, designed posters for all of them and sat with them for a few weeks. I'm still keeping an open mind, even though I'm confident that I've got something that works, now.

Actually I love the name AM/FM since it's a late-night (early morning) DJ on an FM station. I was amazed no one had used that name before. If we ever considered making a 'Talk Radio II" we would have our attorney look into it, I was just curious since there are 100s of PART TWOs on the shelves that have NOTHING to do with the PART ONE of the same name.

mrde50 said:

Then please explain "Halloween III: Season of the Witch" relates to Michael Myers.

Click to expand...

I think you're just being sarcastic. But in case you're not... Halloween 3 was made by the same producers as 1 and 2, so in that case it was them ripping off themselves

At the time, John Carpenter wanted to make a different 'Halloween' themed movie each year with a different story, but cal them Halloween 3,4 5 etc. However, Halloween 3 was a major flop. After some rights haggling, the late Moustapha Akkad (financier for H 1,2 and 3 and producer of 4,5,6,7 and 8) won out over Carpenter and brought Michael back for 1988's Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers. Incidently, Halloween is now over at the "Weinstien Company" after is departure form Miramax, and they are currently thinking about a remake of the original film as opposed to another sequel, even though a Halloween 9 was in pre-production when Moustapha was killed in a terrorist attack earlier this year. Got all that?


Anyway, as far as these other 'sequels' they are actualy 'legit' in that the company that owns the title, are making DTV sequels to make a quick buck. 'Carlito's Way: Rise To Power' actualy has the same producers. That however at least has something to do with the orignal. Disney has been making second rate sequels to classics for years, seems everyone else just noticed and followed suit. When original actors and storylines can't really be followed up, or actors just too expensive too get, they just start over with simalar themes. Like the Cruel Intentions sequels. It was a regular practice in horror for years to make follow-ups with little or nothing to do with the original. Now the big boys do it too.