It was over a year ago that we heard the Weinstein Company were going to start creating prequels to the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon film from the original author's books, and it was only a month later we heard that they were going to court to fight for the rights for the novels. Yet today we hear that the fight isn't even in court yet.

In March last year we heard that the Weinstein's had bought the rights to the Crane - Iron Pentalogy novels by Wang Du Lu and hoped that they could make a franchise of them. In the series of books Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was the fourth story.

However a month later we heard that Columbia was claiming they had obtained the rights verbally long before the Weinstein's had a signed deal.

Today in a story over at The LA Times we hear how the whole mess is continuing.

It seems that the son, Hong Wang , of the original author is the reason the court case is here. Columbia are claiming that they received verbal and email agreements for the titles sales to them whereas Weinstein is saying he has the written contract, dated after that of the claimed verbal agreement.

"Since the release of 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,' my mother, my sister and I have been anxious for more movies to be made based on the four books before the copyright in my father's works expires"

Are the words the son used in the affidavit for the case. He goes onto say that both his sister and he had to agree the sale before it was made.

Columbia are seeking US$200 million damages in the case, I have no idea how they pulled that figure out of their heads, while the Weinstein company believes that this is damaging their reputation and interferes with their opportunities to exploit the rights.

It's all a bit of a mess and it looks likely that we won't be seeing any prequels for a very long time.