Award Pictures has been an Exhiibitor at the American Film Market four times, first, in February/March 2004, then again in November 2004, followed by November 2005, and November 2006.
This important industry event is held at the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel . The time frame for the Market shifted to November in 2004 when the American Film Market Association changed its name to the Independant Film and Television Alliance and affiliated with the American Film Institute which holds the AFI Film Festival in LA at the same time as the AFM. Since then the AFM has been held each November.
Listings of Company projects appeared in The Business of Film, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Screen International, and various other publications.
EVIL DEAD: The Lawsuits
It looks bad for Award Pictures. It looks like Award Pictures is EVIL. It looks like Award Pictures’ plans to produce Evil Dead movies are DEAD. A Court judgment was rendered on August 23, 2012. This judgment was an injunction permanently preventing Award Pictures from using the name or doing anything that smacks of Evil Dead. Or was it?
How did Award Pictures get into this situation of horror?
Well, first, the CEO and COO are graduate paralegals. And, 37 C.F.R. (Code of Federal Regulations) says that a designated company manager may represent a company in a trademark issue. However, decisions made by judges in case law have overrun this federal regulation. Therefore, management could not represent the company to file documents in a timely manner. We were required to obtain attorney representation.
We are in Connecticut. Central District Federal Court is in California. After much wrangling we finally obtained an evil dead attorney (take that any way you like). This attorney accepted the case at a time when the clerk of the court had signed a default judgment. He said, "Something has to be done right away." "This is the second worst position."
Our "attorney" was expected to file an appearance, followed by appropriate documents to move the case out of the Clerk’s judgment order. But, no, he filed nothing, failed to communicate with us, and on the day the judge signed the injunction judgment he mailed a letter by snail mail to withdraw from the case.
After a judgment is signed by the court judge, the defendant (Award Pictures) is in the worst position. The Case has been decided. And from this POV the Opposition filed with the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board by Award Pictures would also be ASHes.
But wait! This is law. If you say the words just write, then, even though Renaissance has a terrible hunger for the alleged trademark the sun can rise on a new chapter in the Evil Dead lawsuit story. By filing a motion to vacate the judgment, the case can continue and be heard on its merits. This is the current situation. We are now in the time of EVIL DEAD: THE LAWSUITS REMAKE.
Award Pictures has retained former White House attorney Robert Sirianni and his legal team of Brownstone Law, P. A. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure permit the filing of a Rule 60 motion to vacate the current court decision.