The International House of Mojo

The quote I'm seeing is that the rights are "tangled up," which has many interpretations.

Some of what you said is incorrect, Alfred. Dave Gilbert spoke to Moriarty on the same day he mentioned those three companies. Gilbert was super excited to work with Moriarty as he is a huge fan. That's when Moriarty told him he'd JUST discovered the rights were no longer available.

http://www.wadjeteyegames.com/forum/index.php?topic=2458.0

I think the biggest thing to backup Moriarty's comments is the fact that Lion was on Justin's computer. I hadn't noticed that. I can't think of a reason it would be there unless Moriarty's version was correct. Hmm.

Thanks for the info. Sony really being the one getting the rights makes a lot of sense. I still don't see them making a Loom sequel without recruiting Double Fine, who would in turn recruit Brian. But who knows what's really going on. It's been a full year since Brian made these comments so perhaps things have changed for the better since then.

I remember that, back when the Grim Fandango remake was announced, one of the Sony guys involved with setting those deals up was a guest on Giant Bomb (maybe a podcast or an E3 stream or something, it's been a while). Their story was: A team within Sony was interested in doing remakes of Lucasarts adventures, and they figured there was a chance they could convince Disney (the Lucasarts-Disney deal was recent back then) now that they owned the rights. While approaching Disney they found out Double Fine was talking to them at the same time, and that's how the current deal was created. One of the Giant Bomb guys asked him if they were going to do more remakes (DOTT and Throttle weren't announced yet), and he said they'd like to do 'all of them'. Some time later Tim started talking about wanting to do at least the ones he worked on (which means Throttle would be the last), but that he would be willing to do more if the other creative leads were willing to be involved.

What I remember about the moment where Moriarty started talking about remaking/continuing Loom: the 3 studios he named were Telltale (who never publicly commented), Wadjet Eye (who said they'd love to but that they simply didn't have the resources/connections to make it happen) and Double Fine, who responded with a cryptic 'let's talk' (this was all on Twitter).

I agree that the story Moriarty tells here is dubious at best. If anyone owns temporary rights, it'd be Sony, not Double Fine. I can imagine, given the earlier comments on Giant Bomb, that they did go for some sort of package deal, containing all the adventure games (excluding perhaps the Indiana Jones games, given their trickier IP status), and that they quickly decided on the three games Double Fine did/is doing due to their Schafer connection, ignoring the other games for the time being. Or something like that.

In the end, I think the 'someone else' Moriarty is talking about might just be Disney or Sony themselves and something got lost in translation. I can imagine that happening if there were ever talks between him and people from Double Fine, if they discussed to possibility at all. Loom isn't the biggest franchise in the world and negotiating with Disney is hard as hell - you'd need a company like Sony on your side to do the heavy lifting.

We will have to wait and see, once we get some real info on the Full Throttle remake (tonight?) the road will be clear for any announcement.
I think that DF toying around with Loom was definitely a possibility. They could get Brian Moriarty to join easily. In some of their documentary episodes you could see Loom running on Justin Bailey's computer in the background.

PS: Loom did get a re-release on GOG.com last year. None of the original games that later got a remastered version were released back then. But that criteria doesn't leave much space for new remasters: Only The Curse of Monkey Island and Escape from Monkey Island are yet to get some official re-release.

I doubt Double Fine ever had the rights to Loom unless they got it by default as some sort of batch deal. And I certainly don't believe they started spending money on something they did not know for sure they had the rights to.

My theory is that Double Fine approached Brian (or vice versa) due to their previous success at getting licenses from Disney, the answer from on high came back no, and assumptions were made as to why that was the answer. Maybe different people are in charge now, maybe Disney is more reluctant to allow sequels rather than remakes, maybe somehow someone else really DID license Loom, or maybe what we got here is failure to communicate.

That would mean that DF optioned Loom and let the rights slide. I guess it's possible, it just seems strange.

The line of communication is likely Disney->Sony->Double Fine->Brian. There are plenty of ways for info to get distorted with that game of telephone. Also, if Disney actually did say someone else has the license, why trust that? In the business world, there are many creative ways to say No.

I just think the type of studio that would be interested in Loom would want Brian on board. This isn't some massive license to cash in on. The only reason to do more with Loom is to do it right. For Brian to say "No one's talked to me" tells me there is no one really working on it.

I wish I could agree, but he's very careful and very specific about what he says, hinting there's more he knows that he can't tell us. He picks his words very carefully, even to the point of explaining what an "option" is. This wasn't something misheard or is unsure about. He's clearly gotten very specific details from somewhere. VERY specific. But those details just don't add up...

I can't understand it myself. He may think it's a white lie to try and generate buzz around Loom. It wouldn't surprise me.

I don't believe Brian is deliberately spreading false information, but I do believe Double Fine only sought the IPs for the three games Tim was project leader on. Tim has stated that he feels remasters of the other games should be spearheaded by their respective project leaders.

Double Fine was still the most logical studio to talk to because they established some sort of relationship with Disney (or at least Sony did, at their behest). So if the word did come back that Loom was unavailable for license, Brian would most likely be getting it third hand and thus may have the details wrong. What I do believe is that he was told the rights weren't available.

I don't think hope is lost though. Double Fine wedged some kind of crowbar in the door to get their remasters made. I think anything can happen after Full Throttle.

PS - You spelt his name wrong in the article. It's Moriarty, as in the evil mastermind.

It's hard not to point a finger at Brian Moriarty for spreading this sort of confusing and conflicting information. Unless DoubleFine were forced to option Loom with GF, DOTT and FT, why would they do it? It would be a waste of money for a project that Schafer has no connection with, and it's double dubious that, even if they did option Loom, they would just let the option expire... How short is this option?? Less than Full Throttle's...?? (Which hadn't started production at the time of his talk.)

Moriarty seems to be talking a huge amount of nonsense.

Every video I will ever make now has its theme.

One word:

Kierdorf.