For those of you that haven’t heard the news, a judge has ruled that Time Warner are no longer the sole pro­pri­etors of the Super­man fran­chise — with the heirs of co-creator Jerome Siegel hav­ing an enti­tle­ment to the share of the US copy­right. The copy­right cov­ers only a por­tion of the Super­man cre­ation — that being the fun­da­men­tal ele­ments — the cos­tume, Clark Kent, Lois Lane.

In short, this means that Time Warner may now be liable, pend­ing a court appeal, to pay out for Super­man Returns. This rul­ing may also lead the Shuster’s to fol­low suit (the other half of the Super­man cre­ation team) and claim another large por­tion of the copy­right. Ulti­mately it all puts the future of The Man of Steel into jeop­ardy, not to men­tion the already trou­bled Jus­tice League film.

NYTimes