Note to self: Warner buying anything related to King Arthur, rename my Transformers 8 spec "Arthurtron and Lanceprime"

Jokes aside, this is an interesting development. I can't imagine the same studio producing three different Arthur movies in such a short window. Doesn't it seem like a virtual certainty that one or more of these will be shelved?

How often do you think studios purchase scripts in order to prevent other studios from producing them and are there any famous cases where this happened?

Re what Warners will do with three King Arthur projects: My guess is they will either (A) shelve two of them and roll the dice on one (probably this latest one), (B) cannibalize whatever story elements they can from the other two for the project they greenlight, perhaps, or (C) pull some key story elements out of the two projects they don't go forward with for potential sequel plots based on the project they do produce, assuming it does enough business to warrant a sequel.

Note: WB is hooked on franchises. And why wouldn't they be after the ginormous success of Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings / The Hobbit, Batman Begins / The Dark Knight / The Dark Knight Rises. This $2M purchase definitely smells like one big step in creating a Arthur & Lancelot franchise.

Re studios doing defensive buys: It happens. Rarely, but it does. I'll have to dig into my brain cells to recall some examples. I seem to remember something about that movie Sphere where one studio had the rights to a global epidemic thriller and another was interested in developing something similar. IIRC this second studio approached some real life people who had been featured in a magazine article on the subject matter [these people had been approached by the first studio as well]. The second studio reps basically said this: "Either you sell your rights to us, or we'll just rip them off." In the end, Sphere came out and the other project died on the vine.

I think you're referring to Outbreak, not Sphere, Scott. I remember at the time Richard Preston's "The Hot Zone," was huge, and everyone wanted an Ebola-based thriller. "The Hot Zone" itself was in development with Jodie Foster attached, if I recall, while Outbreak was an opportunistic copycat project that was rushed into production... and may have ended up dooming the actual "Hot Zone" movie.

@Adam: You are absolutely right. It was Outbreak, not Sphere. And your take on the history of that project sounds right, too. Thanks for the clarification.