You know the worst thing about this story is it didn't manage to make it through to the Courts and the movie pulled, but it seems to have been saved at the last minute by a nice big American style behind closed doors lawsuit payoff.

From Movie Web:

According to The Hollywood Reporter, For a little while, at least, a federal judge told Warner Bros. to cancel the release of The Dukes of Hazzard and impound any copies of the film.

Preliminary injunction was issued last Friday in a suit brought by producer Robert B. Clark. Warners bought TV rights to his obscure 1975 film "Moonrunners" when the studio originally made the Hazzard TV skein.

Clark alleged nothing in the original 1978 contract gave Warners the right to also make a movie. In issuing such a far-reaching order, Judge Gary Allen Feess agreed.

"Plaintiffs have shown a likelihood that they will be able to prove at trial that they have an ownership interest in 'The Dukes of Hazzard' film," Feess wrote.

Suit has since been settled, but legal sources not involved in the case said Warners likely paid a pretty penny to settle.

Marc Toberoff, who represented the plaintiffs, said, "The parties have reached a settlement of all claims in the litigation. The terms of that settle-ment are confidential."

Well let's face it, I doubt he would have ever managed to get the lawsuit to a good decision for him, even if the Judge was talking as though he was siding with him. So getting hard cash compensation is probably the next best thing.

Still...it was almost pulled. The Judge did make an interesting point though, WB claimed that the authors left it too late to file a suit, but the Judge returned saying that it was ironic that with all their lawyers and volumes of documents, that they were surprised by the claim. Shouldn't they have done their homework first instead of letting it get to this stage?