If the family of one of Superman's creators gets their way in a new lawsuit, Big Blue's new movie may not come to some countries for quite a while. So what exactly is going on here?
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00:00If the family of one of Superman's creators gets their way in a new lawsuit,
00:04Big Blue's new movie may not come to some countries for quite a while.
00:07So what exactly is going on here? According to Deadline, the lawsuit was filed by the
00:11family of Joe Shuster, who co-created Superman with Jerry Siegel all the way back in 1938.
00:16It doesn't appear to affect the release of director James Gunn's Superman in the United
00:20States, but it would in some pretty major other markets, including Canada,
00:24the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Australia.
00:27"'Home. Take me home.'"
00:30The crux of the Shuster estate's argument is that the copyright for Superman in most of those
00:34countries — and others — reverted to them in 2017, 25 years after Shuster's death in 1992.
00:40That's because copyright laws in many countries terminate copyright assignments to companies
00:44like Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns Superman Publishers DC Comics, after that time frame.
00:49The family's lawsuit against WBD reads, in part,
00:52Shuster died in 1992 and Siegel in 1996. By operation of law,
00:57Shuster's foreign copyrights automatically reverted to his estate in 2017 in most of
01:01these territories, and in 2021 in Canada. Yet defendants continue to exploit Superman
01:06across these jurisdictions without the Shuster estate's authorization.
01:10A WBD spokesman said of the suit,
01:12We fundamentally disagree with the merits of the lawsuit and will vigorously defend our rights."
01:16This is a major roadblock for WBD, which has Superman set for release on July 11,
01:212025. The lawsuit requires a jury trial, and could be in the courts for quite some time.
01:26The Shuster family is requesting a cease-and-desist order on the movie's
01:29release in the territories covered until everything is settled.
01:32Superman is intended to be the tentpole first film release for Gunn's new DCU,
01:36and anything that holds back its wide distribution will most assuredly mar that
01:40massive effort to revitalize what has been a struggle in DC's film efforts to keep up with Marvel.
01:46Because the hierarchy of power in the DC universe is about to change."
01:51So why isn't any of this affecting the release of Superman in the States? For one,
01:55the laws are different. But also, Shuster, Siegel, and their families have been fighting
01:59DC and its various parent companies for the U.S. copyright since the 1940s. In the 1970s,
02:04DC once again began consistently crediting Siegel and Shuster as Superman's creators,
02:09thanks to pressure from other comics legends in advance of the release of the 1978 Superman movie.
02:14In 2013, an updated credit started appearing, Superman Created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster
02:19by Special Arrangement with the Jerry Siegel Family. That was a result of a 2001 court order.
02:24Yet throughout it all, DC has maintained the copyright to the character of Superman in the
02:28country where he was born. Variety notes that Superman, as he appears in his first appearance
02:32in Action Comics No. 1, will enter the public domain in the U.S. in 2034. Siegel and Shuster
02:37famously sold the rights to Superman to DC for just $130, which amounted to just $65 each.
02:43While that does equal around $2,900 today, it's worth remembering that DC and Warner
02:48Brothers have made millions off of the character over the past 87 years. In a true irony,
02:53Reuters reported that the check with which DC paid Siegel and Shuster for the character
02:57sold for $160,000 at auction in 2012. Even accounting for inflation, that's more than
03:0250 times what Superman's creators were paid for the rights to the superhero who started it all.