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Street date alert - 12:00am

My, that was fast. Boasting one of the quickest theatrical-to-video windows in recent memory, Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment has announced an April 29th street date for the horror thriller Darkness Falls. Debuting in theaters only a couple of weeks ago, no specs are yet available, but at this rate, expect further details any minute...

Citizen Welles - 12:00am

Welles? Lawsuit? Two words that are not exactly strangers, as even five decades after what was arguably his greatest artistic triumph, the legendary auteur is still making headlines.

In a lawsuit filed this week, Orson Welles' daughter Beatrice Welles has sued Turner Entertainment and RKO Pictures, claiming she owns the copyrights to Citizen Kane, as well as "reuse rights" to his much-maligned epic The Magnificent Ambersons. She contends that Welles initially signed a deal with RKO Radio Pictures in 1939 to write, produce and star in a series of films, and that that agreement gave copyrights to the studio. But then both parties superseded the agreement, which would revert select rights to the Welles estate.

"We think we are entitled to reuse fees, not from the copyright but because he wrote the script," Welles' attorney Steven Ames Brown said, and further cited parent company Warner Bros. as failing to pay Welles or his heirs royalties on the films. The lawsuit seeks a court-ordered review of the contracts to determine what is in force.

While Welles' films, such as the much-lauded and award-winning Citizen Kane DVD released by Warner last year, remain on the shelves, the end result of the case could have ramifications for future availability and licensing of Welles' works. The lawsuit is also only the latest in a series aimed at Warner, following recent actions taken by such filmmakers as William Friedkin and William Peter Blatty over royalties for The Exorcist (they lost), as well as pending litigation over the restored and expanded edition of the blockbuster Superman. So get those Citizen Kane DVDs while you can...you never know what might happen.

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