‘The Vow’ teaser sparks bitter fight over 3 ‘Bachelor’ cues
Warner Bros. has accused Fox Nation of borrowing “The Bachelor” playbook to market Chris Harrison’s new dating series. In a cease-and-desist letter, the studio claimed “The Vow” teaser uses its intellectual property, and Fox News Media has rejected the claim, Deadline reported Thursday, Oct. 1, after reviewing both sides’ letters. The Hollywood Reporter first reported the dispute.
Harrison hosted “The Bachelor” from 2002 to 2021. His new show, “Chris Harrison’s The Vow,” is set to premiere on the Fox Nation streaming service in November.
Warner Bros. objects to roses, a tux and a mansion
The letter came from Ahassim Rashid, vice president and intellectual property counsel for Warner Bros. Entertainment, which owns “The Bachelor.” According to Deadline, Rashid flagged three elements of The Vow teaser:
- Red rose petals “falling in the background with text in the foreground,” a look Warner Bros. said it has licensed to third parties for other ads.
- The words “The Bachelor,” followed by an image of a man in a tuxedo holding a rose.
- A shot of a mansion that Rashid said was “meant to evoke the iconic ‘Bachelor Mansion.'”
Rashid wrote that “The Vow” teaser “represents a plain attempt to capitalize on and ‘ride on the coattails'” of the long-running ABC franchise.
The studio did not try to stop the show itself. Its attorney wrote that Warner Bros. has “no objection” to Fox and Lionsgate releasing a Harrison-hosted dating show “in and of itself,” Deadline reported.
Fox News Media’s answer to The Vow teaser complaint
Katherine Moran Meeks, executive vice president and general counsel for Fox News Media, pushed back in a reply letter. She wrote that Warner Bros.’ lawyers “wrongly assume that Warner Bros. holds any intellectual property rights whatsoever in a falling roses motif or in the words ‘The Bachelor’ when used colloquially to describe a single man.”
Her letter made two main arguments, per Deadline. First, falling rose petals are scènes à faire, a legal term for stock elements of a genre, which she said have shown up in films from “American Beauty” to “Moulin Rouge” to “Beauty and the Beast.” Second, any wink at the ABC show in “The Vow” teaser is protected speech under the First Amendment.
“Even assuming this fleeting use of ‘The Bachelor’ is also a tongue-in-cheek reference to your show, that kind of ‘word-play, ambiguity, irony and allusion’ receives full protection of the First Amendment and cannot support a claim for trademark infringement,” Moran Meeks wrote.
She also accused Warner Bros. of going after Harrison in “this malicious and vindictive manner.” Warner Bros. had not commented further, according to Deadline. No lawsuit over “The Vow” teaser had been reported as of Thursday, and neither company had announced any change to the promo.
What ‘The Vow’ is
The six-episode series follows Jace Cates, 30, as he dates 10 women looking for marriage, with a focus on faith, family values and compatibility, TheWrap reported in September. The first two episodes are scheduled for Nov. 11, with the finale on Dec. 9. Lionsgate Alternative Television produces, and former “Bachelor” couple Sean and Catherine Lowe appear as relationship advisers, according to TheWrap.
A dispute in the middle of a merger
The letters arrived as Warner Bros. Discovery nears the close of its sale to Paramount. A federal judge on Sept. 30 approved Paramount’s settlement with 12 states that sued to block the deal, and the companies expect to close on Oct. 6, The Associated Press reported. Read more on the judge’s approval of the Paramount-WBD merger and the consent decree’s terms.
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