Is there any more fan unfriendly studio than 20th Century Fox? They gleefully ruined the X-Men franchise, they’ve been openly disdainful of the online community, sending out take down notices and shutting out online journalists and now… they’re trying to keep the world from seeing Watchmen.

They’re currently engaged in litigation against Warner Brothers. This has been brewing for awhile now, with Fox claiming it still owns the rights to the movie that Warner Brothers has now all but finished making. Initially many thought this thing would be quickly thrown out of court, after all it’s hard to believe that a mega-company like Warners would have started developing the movie without getting their ducks in a row first. But today, thinks got a lot worse for Watchmen when a judge denied Warner Bros. motion to dismiss Fox’s lawsuit.

Now you might be thinking they’ll solve this by simply throwing some money at Fox. After all, that makes sense. This is a potentially huge film, and Fox is supposed to be about making profit. So as long as they can profit from the film, they should be happy, right? Nope. Fox’s legal team insist they have no interest in cash. Their stated goal is to prevent the movie from being released, to prevent the film from ever being seen. They want it dead and buried, according to Variety.

This latest ruling doesn’t mean Fox has won, but it does mean that Watchmen will now be tied up in further litigation. Even if Warner Brothers eventually wins, there’s a very real chance here that Watchmen could now spend months and years tied up in legal red tape. From the sounds of it, nothing would make 20th Century Fox happier.