This seems very weird given that both media involve Greek mythological settings. And the video game had to be renamed as well…
Immortals was a banger of a film.
There could be a huge range of possible answers to this question. But we can look at the listings to get some clues.
IMMORTALS FENYX RISING Owner: UBISOFT ENTERTAINMENT (France) Nice class: 9, 14, 16, 18, 25, 28, 41
Regional Trademark Registration Region of filing: European Union Status: Registered (June 25, 2021) Number: 018409702
And
IMMORTALS Owner: Relativity Media, LLC (USA) Nice class: 9, 16, 28, 41 Regional Trademark Registration Region of filing: European Union Status: Expired (November 12, 2020) Number: 009520024
Now there is some overlap between them. The Nice classes, which denote which product/service categories the words are trademarked within, however within a single Nice class there can be a variety of products.
Fenyx rising’s trademark is still active and we can see it was refiled in June 2021, with some previously expired trademarks of the same name having expired in November 2021, whereas Immortals expired in 2020. Without going into the details my best guess is that the initial filing was more limited and has now been expanded to cover more media.
But the big one here is the characteristic word. By adding Fenyx Rising, it could be argued that that, in addition to the material differences between the products, there is enough separation to ensure there is no risk of confusion from audiences. There are also multiple Immortals trademarks which could make that word in and of itself less defensible depending on the potential conflict.
Finally we can’t discount the possibility that the two parties came to a pre-arranged agreement to exist in the marketplace side by side. This often happens and unless one is a long-serving distinctive trademark then usually parties can find a way to agree.
Immortals is far too generic to be a problem, there are plenty of other works that also use that name. The name changed from gods and monsters because they didn’t want to fight monster energy and potentially delay the game.
I thought Monster Cable were the litigious ones?
Trademark generally only applies within the same medium. The point is to prevent confusion between two competing products. A movie and a video game do not overlap.
Not true at all. That’s just not how trademark protection work.
A movie trademark might not get protected from, say, a food. Those are not related. Trademark protection can apply across media though, especially when it’s something similar like movies and video games (again, contrast that to movies and food)
Movies reuse names occasionally too. As long as they’re not novel names or coming out at the same time it generally doesn’t seem to be an issue.
Trademark isn’t supposed to be enforceable on such generic words.
Like, Bethesda tried to sue Mojang away from launching “Scrolls” because of their Elder Scrolls games. That got settled and eventually Mojang renamed the game before scrapping it anyways, but yeah.
It’s also pretty wild once you realize that laws in general are these things where “whatever side argues best, sets the interpretation.” Anti-slap laws are also worth having and reading up on to stop bogus lawsuits, but now I’m just rambling.
