In today’s Wall Street Journal, John Lippman reports that about three and a half weeks ago Warner Bros. agreed to pay $17.5 million to a group of people “who held rights related” to the Dukes of Hazzard TV series. The payout involved a collossal mistake: Warner Bros. and the producers of the upcoming Dukes of Hazzard feature (opening August 5th) never secured the movie rights. The Hazzard TV series itself “was based on a 1975 United Artists film called Moonrunners,” Lippman recounts. “Producer Bob Clark acquired [the Moonrunners] script by Gy Waldron, which Waldron also directed. In 1978, Warner Bros. acquired the rights to make Moonrunners into the Hazzard TV series. But according to Mr. Clark’s lawsuit, the studio never acquired the movie rights.” The $17 million payout represents about a third of the film’s original budget of $55 million.