You can make best-guesses, but no one ever knows what a judge will allow.
Of course JJ's statements occurred after the suit started. How could he and Lin try to smooth over something if it hasn't happened yet?
I never said Paramount lost their right to protect their IP, at all. That's just a straw-man.
No one knows 100%, but we can make reasonable, educated guesses based on the information we currently have.
And based on all of that, the reasonable, educated guess is that there isn't going to be much that JJ Abrams or Justin Lin have to offer this case.
There's basically no reason to depose either of them unless they have information pertaining to interactions
prior to the filing of the lawsuit. Comments made
after the filing don't help Axanar at all, because Axanar is (likely) raising an affirmative defense that they reasonably relied on Abrams/Lin's statements that they should be allowed to make their movie.
Logically, however, that doesn't hold up
if the only statements from Abrams/Lin came
after the lawsuit was filed. Why? Well, think it through. Paramount filing a lawsuit to allege copyright infringement is as clear a statement as you could ask for that the infringement in question is not being tolerated or permitted. A statement from someone who has worked with Paramount in the past that they had heard from someone at Paramount that the lawsuit was being dropped (which it then wasn't)
is not permission to infringe. The timeline is wrong. Legally speaking, for Axanar to have relied on a statement that apparently permitted them to proceed, that statement would have to be made
before the lawsuit was filed and before and C&D letter was sent. Basically, Axanar has to show that Paramount actually said something to them upon which they could have relied before the first warning shots (C&D) of a lawsuit were fired. My guess is that conversation never happened.
But even if it did, Axanar would then also have to demonstrate that it was reasonable for them to rely upon the statements made by Abrams and/or Lin, neither of whom are Paramount execs, and neither of whom reasonably could be argued to have the authority to determine who gets to use Paramount's IP.
So, again, the Abrams/Lin angle is pretty much ********. A judge might let a brief inquiry go forward, but if I had to guess, it would only be so that the judge could avoid any possibility of being overturned on appeal for failing to permit some procedural aspect of the case to go forward in a way that made it seem like the judge had their finger on the scale for Paramount. In the end, it won't matter even if Abrams is deposed because, legally, he'll have nothing to really offer the case. So it's not remotely a "victory" to be allowed to move forward with trying to depose him.