The copyright legal battle behind the ownership of the Predator franchise might prevent Disney from making a sequel. The company's acquisition of 2oth Century Fox has seen a number of beloved franchises fall under the legal ownership of Disney, and the Predator films have recently become one of the most contentious of those acquisitions. With the original creators of the series now suing for the rights, there are some fears that Disney's currently in-production Predator movie Skulls might be affected.
Back in 1986, the writing duo of Jim and John Thomas set out to create a new and frightening breed of sci-fi/alien film. The end result was the original 1987 Predator, which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger and centered on an elite task force that finds itself the prey of a cunning alien hunter. The film proved to be incredibly popular, and the Thomas brothers returned to help pen the story for 1990's Predator 2. After this, the brothers moved on to other projects, allowing 20th Century Fox to produce a further two films without their involvement: 2010's Predators and 2018's The Predator.
Now, the Thomas brothers are looking to secure the rights for the franchise they helped launch nearly 35 years ago. Their efforts have seen them go up against Disney, which hasn't utilized its rights to the Predator character and films much at all since acquiring them. However, the announcement and production of Skulls has thrown another big complication into an already complicated legal case. Could Disney end up losing the US rights to Predator, and if they do, where will that leave the production of Skulls/Predator 5?
Perhaps the biggest question behind the Predator copyright battle is just how the Thomas brothers were able to challenge Disney's claim on the rights in the first place. The answer lies within the termination provision of copyright law. This provision allows the authors of a piece of copyrighted media or their heirs to terminate the grant of a license transfer for a work the author has a copyright claim on, and then reclaim the work for themselves. If certain conditions are met, this provision can overwrite a signed contract like the Disney purchase of Fox, and see the work of an artist returned to them after a certain period of time. This is the loophole that the Thomas brothers are hoping to take advantage of in their lawsuit against Disney. With nearly 35 years having elapsed since 20th Century Fox claimed copyright of the Predator property, the brothers now have the legal power to attempt to reclaim those rights. Their notices of Termination are the subject of the lawsuit, as opposed to the rights to Hunters: the Thomas brothers believe they should have been able to reclaim the rights in 2021, but Disney contested thanks to issues with the first two Termination notices.
In April of 2021, Disney via the newly rebranded 20th Century Studios filed their countersuit against the Thomas brothers on the subject of the reclamation date, and in June, the case was transferred to the Central District of California in Los Angeles. With Skulls currently in production and rumored to be heading exclusively to the Disney-owned Hulu streaming service, the company is obviously intent on holding onto the rights to the series until after it is released. But beyond that is a different matter. The Thomas Brothers filed a third Termination notice, which Disney have not contested, which would see the US copyright for Hunters revert to them in 2023. The good news in the meantime is that Skulls is set to finish filming in August 2021, with the trial contesting when the Thomas brothers would own the copyright not set to kick off until April 2022. So the fate of Skulls/Predator 5 should be safe even if the future sees the copyright revert away from Disney.