Everyone else in America may have been on a blissful three-day vacation over the weekend, but people at both Fox and Warner Bros. were busy seething over what seems to be an imminent battle royale over the rights to Watchmen. The two studios filed a joint report for the federal court of Los Angeles on Friday, each essentially continuing to point fingers at one another, claiming the other has no right to the graphic novel, the title, or even the completed Watchmen movie.

The New York Times lays it all out in what's basically a summary of the they-said, we-said accusations. But one particular accusation from Warner seems especially damning: "Warner has argued that Fox should not be allowed to stop the movie, after standing by while Warner and its partners on the film, Paramount Pictures and Legendary Pictures, spent more than $100 million on the production."

"Exactly!" shout those of us who have been watching this mess from the sidelines. Everyone who follows even the slightest bit of movie news has known about the Watchmen production for ages-- we were reporting casting rumors back in 2006-- and Fox seems to have been sitting in the corner, pouting, while Warner Bros. went ahead with their production. Clearly this gives Fox all the more leverage to fight with Warner, now that there's a $100 million-plus investment in a movie at stake, but it also makes them look like foolish whiners.

And if things weren't confusing enough when it was just Fox and Warner squabbling, now Universal and Paramount may get thrown into the fray as well. As the Times explains, "Universal had tried to make a version of the film in 2001, before Paramount took over. And though Paramount dropped its plans for the movie, it became involved as a partner when Warner teamed up with the director Mr. Snyder in the wake of the box office success of 300.

Ugh. It seemed for a while that Warner could drum up major fan support online in order to get the movie released, but as the finger-pointing becomes more and more complex, how many fans will just tune out rather than try to untangle this mess? We'll keep reporting it here at Cinema Blend, of course, but right now I'd rather lock these guys in a room and let them sort it out rather than devote much brainpower to several multi-billion dollar corporations squawking about money.