The courts found a last-minute gift for the studio that has, well, not much. Leverage. Fox can now hold this ruling over Warner Bros. planned March 6 release of Watchmen.

I understand why they’re threatening the release date, but if Fox wants to see dime one out of this flick they’d be better off negotiating for some kind of back-end deal. Hurting the release date hurts the back-end. Of course, they might (a) be using the threat to get that back-end or (b) not really believe they’ll ever get that kind of deal from Warner Bros. and could care less about hurting Watchmen’s gross.

On the other hand, if any studio can afford to be generous right now, it’s Warner Bros.

My favorite part of this scenario came a while back, when fanboys threatened Fox with what now passes for protest in geekdom. If Fox harmed the release of Watchmen, they said, they’d retaliate by…wait for it…illegally downloading Wolverine instead of paying to see it in theaters.

Keep in mind, this would be the equivalent of, instead of boycotting the Montgomery bus system in 1955, stealing the buses. Somehow that seems bolder.

Ever heard of Set Magazine? Me neither, but they have four character covers for Watchmen.

A while back, it was television sitcoms. Now it seems like graphic novel are inspiring every potential blockbuster.

From 300 and Sin City to The Dark Knight and the anticipated Watchmen, Hollywood movies are lifting stories, concepts and designs right from established (and extremely popular) graphic novels.

So, which one is next?

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Universal Pictures grabbed the rights to 2 Guns from Boom! Studios. Written by Steven Grant with art by Mat Santolouco, Guns follows a DEA agent and an undercover Naval Intelligence officer who are unwittingly investigating each other and who steal mob money for the good guys. They realize later that the mob actually got them to steal $50 million from the CIA.

Sounds serious, but it’s not. ComingSoon says the project “is targeted to be a throwback to classic ’80s buddy cop movies” in the vein of Lethal Weapon and 48 HRS. All kidding aside, we need more movies like that. Here’s hoping!

Now that The Dark Knight has reached theaters, Hollywood can close up shop for a few months and catch its breath, right?

Hardly. We have new movies to hype! And a few of them have trailers.

First up, James Marsh’s brilliant documentary Man On Wire (a movie that’s actually better than TDK … heresy!!)

Then there’s this amusing trailer for Pineapple Express, a comedy from uber-serious David Gordon Green. Seth Rogen’s overexposed at this point, but James Franco’s lazy laugh at the “227″ rerun makes me smile every time I see this. Plus, Gary Cole plays a stone-cold killer. Good trailer.

Finally — and this is big — we have early footage of Zack Snyder’s Watchmen adaptation. Snyder pulled Frank Miller’s 300 off the graphic-novel page, and fanboys are eager to see how Ala Moore’s story translates. Looks a little low-budget for my tastes. Guess they’re going for the “indie” cred.