American Battleship Becomes American Warships; Syfy Unveils New Trailer for the Lawsuit-Spawning Mockbuster

Steve Barton   |  

May 9, 2012

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It looks like Universal scored a few hits in its lawsuit against The Asylum over the American Battleship mockbuster but have thus far failed to sink its battleship. Instead the movie has been rechristened American Warships, and Syfy will still air it one day after Battleship opens in US theaters.

For those that need a refresher on this whole controversy, go back and read this story from not quite two weeks ago about Universal suing The Asylum for copyright infringement over its American Battleship mockbuster starring Mario Van Peebles and Carl Weathers. Suffice to say The Asylum is taking this legal action more seriously than past run-ins with movie studios what with the name change and new artwork.

American Battleship is now titled American Warships. Regardless, the movie is still slated for a May 22nd DVD release and is still set to premiere on May 19th a 9/8 Central on Syfy, a television network owned by NBCUniversal, who also owns Universal Pictures, the producers of Battleship who filed the lawsuit.

I’ve heard through the grapevine that Syfy got a lot of heat from its owners for being involved with the film. I say the whole thing sounds like it has the makings of a great HBO docudrama one day.

You can’t really blame Universal execs for being so nervous given how much money their blockbuster has to make just to turn a profit. If there’s one thing that watching the TV spot Syfy just posted for American Warships proves, it’s that the only real difference between Battleship and a Syfy original movie is a $200 million budget.

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