>>86887985>>86888220>>86888390>>86887978The rights to Superboy (and Supergirl) went out to the Salkinds in the 1970s. The Salkinds of course produced Superman, Superman II, Superman III, and Supergirl - before deciding that as Superman III and Supergirl weren't profitable (despite being made on a shoestring compared to the previous movies) they'd sell the movie rights to Cannon Films.
However, being canny operators, they retained the Superboy rights (and I think the Supergirl rights as well) and used these to make a Superboy tv show (with CBS and Viacom) in the late 80s/early 90s, running for four seasons and becoming relatively popular.
However.
Warner Bros. wanted to make a Superman tv show and, as they'd recovered the rights to Superman in live action (following the bankruptcy and library sale of Cannon Films in the late 80s, before its eventual demise in 1994) and had plans for a show that would become Lois & Clark, and launched a legal action against the Salkinds, CBS and Viacom to prevent them making Superboy. It was a very "shut it down until we can figure out what's going on" kind of action; no real merit to it, but because they were able to convince a court to shut down production, schedules and financing collapsed and the show went off the air never to return, clearing the way for WB's own Superman show the following year - without the feared cross-brand problems which might lower the value of Superman or raise the value of Superboy by causing confusion among audiences.
The Siegels and the Shusters, meanwhile, were pursuing their own cases separately against WB, which had nothing to do with any of this - all they cared about was getting a cut of the profits from the characters of Superman and Superboy, and the courts, by and large, agreed that they should - until 2013, when the rights were awarded in whole to Warner Bros. after an appeal. It's possible they might appeal the appeal at the Supreme Court, but it's unlikely at this stage.
