Paramount Pictures Goes To Court Over Godfather Rights

Looks like Paramount Pictures has a battle on their hands with the late Mario Puzo’s estate. Entertainment Weekly reported that the production company and the Puzo estate are headed to a Manhattan federal court to discuss the future of The Godfather franchise.

The case is surrounding the publishing rights of the story and film. According to Paramount Pictures, the original agreement with Puzo gave the production company all the literary, copyright and character rights associated with The Godfather. That left the Puzo estate the rights to publish the original novel and adaptations of the original novel and nothing else.

Attorneys for the Puzo estate disagree with Paramount Pictures, stating that the agreement excluded book publication rights from what Paramount Pictures was allowed to acquire.

The dispute over the publication rights began back in December, when Viacom Inc., who own Paramount Pictures, tried to stop the release of The Family Corleone, a sequel to The Godfather, which was published in May.

The estate is asking the court to declare that the Puzos own the book publishing rights
to any sequel and that Paramount cannot prevent the family from publishing. The estate is also asking the court to make it so that Paramount does not automatically have film rights to any new publications.

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