Warner Bros. Discovery will release in theaters its Superman movie on July 11, 2025. It will be the first Superman movie since 2013. First, though, the company will have to settle a lawsuit filed in New York on January 31, 2025 by the estate of Joseph Shuster, the co-creator of the comic book character.
Shuster and Jerry Siegel created Superman in 1938 when they sold it to Detective Comics (later DC Comics). Starting in 1947, the pair initiated a series of lawsuits to win back the copyright.
Warner Bros. acquired DC Comics in 1967. The Shuster’s estate alleges that DC Comics’ international rights for Superman expired in 2017 and in 2021 in key countries, including Australia, Canada, and the U.K. The lawsuit states that copyrights granted to third parties automatically revert back to the authors — in this case to the authors’ estate — 25 years after their death. Shuster died in 1992 and Siegel in 1996.
More on the Superman’s saga in VideoAge‘s March 2018 issue.
Leave A Comment