A few weeks ago, we brought you the news that the legal rights to Superman's origins were given back to his creators' families, creating a somewhat erratic situation in which different aspects of the character now belong to different people. This is likely to weaken future Superman stories unless the rights are sold back and held in a unitary whole by someone. Now the Man of Steel is facing further legal issues.

The two co-producers for the 2011 Superman film, Superman: Man of Steel, are no longer allowed to be near each other. The New York Post reports that the producers, Jon Peters and Brian Quintana, were recently at a deposition for Quintana's sexual harassment lawsuit against Peters. During the deposition, Peters threatened, "I am going to kick your ass," along with a couple more explicit remarks. Quintana then filed a police report and was granted a restraining order against Peters, who can no longer come within one hundred yards of Quintana.

So, things are not looking good for Superman. Though the issue involving the character's rights does not go into effect until 2013, all other legal issues will need to be worked out fairly soon so that pre-production can progress in time for production to begin around 2011, which is roughly when filming would need to start in order to guarantee a pre-2013 release. It would seem that the only reasonable solution would be for one or both producers to be scrapped. Even if the Peters-Quintana legal issues are resolved, the relationship between the two is never likely to reach a level conducive to collaboration and productivity. Whether the studios behind the film will actually take steps to ensure such a productive environment is achieved is a different story entirely.