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Spike Suit Spiked
In what must be a tremendous relief to sharp and pointy things everywhere, an agreement has been reached in the name-game lawsuit between Spike Lee and Viacom, home to the new Spike TV.
Lee won a temporary injunction last month barring the media monolith from renaming its TNN cable network, but on Monday Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Walter Tolub lifted the order.
Details of the settlement were not released, but a joint statement was released from Lee and Viacom Tuesday.
"On reviewing the circumstances concerning the name change of the network, I no longer believe that Viacom deliberately intended to trade on my name when naming Spike TV," said the director.
He continued, "As an artist and a filmmaker, I feel that protection of freedom of expression is a critical value and I am concerned that my efforts to stop Viacom from using the Spike TV name could have the unintended consequence of threatening the First Amendment rights of Viacom and others. I am pleased to be able to resolve this matter and be able to work with Viacom on new projects."
For its part, Viacom said, "We are pleased to put aside our differences with such a highly respected and influential creative talent as Mr. Lee and we are delighted to have resolved this lawsuit with him."
The ruling clears the way for Viacom to proceed with its plans to rebrand TNN as Spike TV, the "first network for men." The temporarily nameless network (simply calling itself "The New TNN") had launched its testosterone-friendly programming two weeks ago with a two-hour block of randy cartoons aimed at the 18 and over crowd.
Lee got the injunction claiming Spike TV was looking to cash in on his name (actually Shelton Jackson Lee on his birth certificate) and hard-won reputation as a director of movies like Malcolm X and Do the Right Thing.
He also objected to the "demeaning, vapid and quasi-pornographic content of Spike TV."
The network airs syndicated reruns of Baywatch, Miami Vice, Star Trek and CSI. Among its new animated series is one featuring Pamela Anderson as the voice and double-D inspiration of Stan Lee's Stripperella, an exotic dancer superhero.
Spike Lee was initially ordered to post a bond of $500,000 on June 13 to cover Viacom's potential losses in case he couldn't prove his self-proclaimed monopoly of the moniker. At a hearing two weeks ago, the judge ordered Lee to fork over an additional $2 million and gave him until Monday to come up with the money.
TNN said its scuttled relaunch had cost the net $16.8 million, and the network claimed it could lose up to $42 million if prevented from rebranding itself as Spike TV.
The extra $2 million was never posted; instead, the judge dismissed the injunction after both Spikes reached an agreement.
Lee wasn't actually around to bury the hatchet--the director's busy in Los Angeles shooting Sucker-Free City for Showtime, which is owned by Viacom.
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