Sompote Sands makes US con appearance, trying to make movie

[MouthForWar]

[klen7]

[Henry88]

[MekaGojira3k]

[Henry88]

[MouthForWar]

[Psycho Soldier]

I suppose I can think of worse people to play Ultraman's host. "Will Smith IS Ultraman" would look super-weird on a poster, though. I was actually thinking a few days ago about whether someone would do a big-budget Ultraman movie in America. That could be a pretty tough sell, both to studios and to audiences. You'd need to attract a pretty big name for it to garner much interest, I imagine.

[Baltan II]

Mouth, I think Henry actually meant the source on your quote from Mark Jaramillo. I know I was thinking a similar thing and I've never heard of the guy before either.

I don't doubt that Sompote is shopping around a movie option, but it sounds way too premature to expect something to actually come of this. Maybe, maybe someone considers it once Godzilla is out. By the strength of Pacific Rim alone, not necessarily. Nuke the Fridge also seemed to spin what sounded more like a hopeful casting choice as a definite thing, which was weird.

Still trying to wrap my head around what sounds like a more definitive Chaiyo victory than there's been in some time. I would have never expected the rights to go beyond marketing the original shows like has happened for the past few years.

[klen7]

The website also says that "100s of Ultraman" collectibles will be going on sale. Any word of the venue? www.ultramanforever.com

[MouthForWar]

[MouthForWar]

[Inui Takumi]

All of this is absolutely disgusting.

[Henry88]

the very idea of a big budget ULTRAMAN is intriguing to say the least.

[sentaison]

I would love to see a big budget Ultraman movie, and I like Will Smith. But I cannot find words in any known human language how much I would prefer Tsuburaya involved instead of Chaiyo.

[Godzilla 2000]

Between Tsuburaya driving their own series into the ground with half hour long toy commercials, and now...THIS, all I got to say is...

What the hell happened to Ultraman? Good lord, what a mess.

[O.Supreme]

I actually saw another US based interview a few months back as Sands was looking aggressively to start distributing the various series on DVD. Probaby the reason why RoU & U7 have been released in Malaysia. I know he wants to get a US distributor for the other series as well. To bad it appears S!F has no interest beyond the two series they already released. Guess we'll just continue to wait for the VBG releases, unless a totaly unexpected deal comes to pass in North America

[lhb412]

Does Tsuburaya have terrible lawyers?

[MouthForWar]

[lhb412]

^That's the vibe I get. I feel were not getting the whole picture.

[Reaper G]

Wouldn't Sands be making a con appearance everywhere he goes? ::rimshot::

[Henry88]

[kpa]

I would take this story with a large grain of salt. Anyone who has followed the history of the Chaiyo/Tsuburaya fight knows that, over and over, Sompote has claimed to have won the legal battle, owns the copyright, and is now developing/in production/or finishing up some new Ultraman movie or show. He makes the claims, fans and news sites repeat them, and the legal battle continues and Chaiyo's Ultraman movie/show never gets made. This same pattern has been repeating for a decade and half...

In 2001, Chaiyo announced the were producing a live action TV show for their own character, Ultraman Millennium. They also announced an Ultraman Millennium movie. Later in the year, they said they were already in post-production on an Ultraman cartoon series that would premiere in February 2002. None of these projects were ever made.

In 2003, they announced the Ultraman Millennium movie was already in production for release in 2004. Sompote also said the "Ultraman Town and Museum" theme park would open in Thailand in 2004. In the end there was no movie, no theme park.

In 2004, Sompote told the Thai news paper The Nation that he was in talks with “top Hollywood filmmakers” to make a big budget Ultraman movie. The Hollywood talk went nowhere.

In 2005, Chaiyo made an agreement with the Chinese company Guangzhou Ruishi to produce a Chinese Ultraman series called PROJECT ULTRAMAN. Chaiyo announced the series was completed and would air in China in 2006 and Thailand in 2007. The show was never released.

Chaiyo got very quiet after the 2007-2008 rulings against them (which included fines for copyright infringement) in the Thai and Chinese courts. At that time, all Ultraman products licensed from Chaiyo were pulled from store shelves, and PROJECT ULTRAMAN got the axe.

Now Sompote is making some noise again, popping up with his reps in Los Angeles and talking about an American Ultraman movie. I don’t expect this to go any further than the last half-dozen productions they’ve announced over the past 13 years. Nothing is impossible, but I wouldn’t bet this film will ever be made/released.

The Nuke The Fridge report makes the mistake of taking Sompote's claims at face value. In the comments section for the article, Matt Frank and John Paul Cassidy schooled the site a bit on some of the claims made in the article and comments. NTF's Tony Preto wrote "they won all there legal cases in Japan, Thailand, and the USA and apparently Tsuburaya has used all their appeals"; which raises some red flags since...

1. both sides have had rulings against them in the Thai and Japanese courts
2. the case has never been tried in US courts
3. Tsuburaya is continuing their legal fight

That's the problem with posting an article before doing any fact-checking.

Again, looking over the history of the Chaiyo/Tsuburaya dispute, the Japanese courts have consistently ruled that Tsuburaya Pro controls all copyrights to Ultraman, and that only TPC can produced new Ultraman shows, movies, characters, etc. According to the Japanese courts, Chaiyo has international distribution rights to seven TPC titles… the six Ultra series from ULTRA Q through ULTRAMAN TARO plus the JAMBORG ACE series. Chaiyo also owns their piece of the two films they co-produced with TPC.

In 2007, the Thai court ruled that Sompote had the same rights outside Japan for the same nine properties. The Thai courts ruled that the rights to the characters were separate from the shows, and Chaiyo had no rights to merchandising the Ultraman characters. These rulings have allowed Chaiyo to license the ULTAMAN, ULTRA Q and ULTRA SEVEN DVDs in North America.

For the past several years, the court battles have been on basically the same two issues… 1) Tsuburaya Pro wants Chaiyo completely out of the Ultraman business, and 2) Sompote wants more rights than the courts have granted. Neither side has gotten what they want, and each time a ruling comes down there’s always buzz that one side or the other has now “won” even though nothing really changes.

Chaiyo wasn't stopped when they licensed North American DVD rights for ULTRAMAN, ULTRA Q and ULTRA SEVEN because that was allowed according to the court rulings regarding the old contract. But Sompote has repeatedly tried to push the boundaries of the court rulings, claiming he co-created Ultraman (rejected by both the Japanese and Thai courts), producing and licensing toys and merchandise including for new characters like Tiga and Dyna (the 2007 ruling stopped that), and trying to make his own Ultraman shows and characters. Every single time he has tried to do his own Ultraman productions, merchandising, etc, the project failed or was stopped by Tsuburaya and the courts.

Sompote would have to be a complete idiot not to see that. My suspicion is that his real goal is just to talk up Ultraman so he wrangle as much money from it as possible. Whether a project is ever actually made is less important than getting investors and licensees to sign on.

[MouthForWar]

Sampote sucks .

[Henry88]

that is a bit of a buzz kill.

[StevenScrivello]