WATCHMEN Movie Discussion (book SPOILERS)

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tomandshell

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Alan Moore's brilliant graphic novel Watchmen might finally be making its way to the big screen after a long history of false starts, studio interruptions and a veritable merry-go-round of directors hopping on and off the project over the last twenty years.

This time, the unfilmable work could actually start filming this summer due to the positive pre-release buzz on current director Zach Snyder's adaptation of "300."

https://www.superherohype.com/news/topnews.php?id=5207

I dearly hope that this is true.

Is it too early for Sideshow to get to work on obtaining the license?
 
Re: Who Watches the Watchmen?

Watchmen is a DC franchise, I highly doubt it'll work with SST's marvel thing... maybe HOT TOYS or MEDICOM would get it.
 
Re: Who Watches the Watchmen?

Don't see it coming from SSC, maybe DCD or competing figures from Takara, HT and Medicom...
 
Re: Who Watches the Watchmen?

I'm mixed. The comic is SO GREAT no movie will do it justice period! But that wouldn't stop me from seeing it. I'm not gonna be a fanboy like "IT HAS TO BE GOOD" because almost all movies based on Moores work suck, and especially suck next to the comics. It's not even like the suck ONLY in comparison to the comics, but they're bad movies overall. So I'm not getting my hopes up.
 
Re: Who Watches the Watchmen?

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Well Kelly, most movies based on his work do suck, but I thought V For Vendetta was pretty good. Sure, not as good as the original work, but far superior to anything ever done before that was based on his work. If done right, I could see Watchmen being quite good.
 
Re: Who Watches the Watchmen?

Let's see how the director does adapting 300, and then we'll have an idea about his approach to Watchmen. It sounds like he wants to be pretty faithful.

And I guess that there's no chance of Sideshow doing something with a DC property. Didn't think about that...

:monkey2 :monkey2 :monkey2
 
Re: Who Watches the Watchmen?

I've been waiting for a Watchmen movie for a looong time. I'm not going to get my hopes up until they actually start shooting.

I have a nice collection of Watchmen items, but I don't think I would buy 6" figures. I believe DCD actually made prototype figures a few years ago. They even had photos of them in ToyFare. Then Moore shot them down.
 
Re: Who Watches the Watchmen?

Batty said:
I've been waiting for a Watchmen movie for a looong time. I'm not going to get my hopes up until they actually start shooting.

I have a nice collection of Watchmen items, but I don't think I would buy 6" figures. I believe DCD actually made prototype figures a few years ago. They even had photos of them in ToyFare. Then Moore shot them down.
From what I understand Moore hates everything anyone does of his work. This thread reminds me I need to read Watchmen again.
 
Re: Who Watches the Watchmen?

I found some pics of the DCD proto figures shown in 2000. It looks like these were the only 3 made. Notice the translucent Dr. Manhattan variant in the back.

 
Re: Who Watches the Watchmen?

Batty said:
I found some pics of the DCD proto figures shown in 2000. It looks like these were the only 3 made. Notice the translucent Dr. Manhattan variant in the back.


And the alternate Comedian head on a stick.
 
Re: Who Watches the Watchmen?

Since Moore stopped the Watchmen figures from happening, I wonder how NECA got the rights to do the V for Vendetta figure and statue. Did he refuse to let DCD do them? I wouldn't doubt it.
 
Re: Who Watches the Watchmen?

Considering how the subject was handled within the story of Watchmen itself, it doesn't surprise me that Moore is against action figures being made.
 
Re: Who Watches the Watchmen?

I'm sure it'd be a cool movie to see but I just found Watchmen very boring to read. I suppose because I read it nowadays as opposed to back in the 80's when it was a shocking comic story.

Of course the ending was one of the highlights.
 
Re: Who Watches the Watchmen?

I really do hope they make it.... That comic is one of the all time greats... just a classic all around. It needs to be put on the screen. I never thought they could make "V" work and they surprised me there.... maybe it can work for Watchmen. :cool:
 
Re: Who Watches the Watchmen?

my only problem with this movie being made is that it's so long, how can they make it into one movie? Just read this:

IMDB said:
David Hayter wrote a 324 page screenplay addaptation to the graphic novel "Watchmen" by Allan Moore and David Gibbons which has been hailed as one of the most accurate translations of comics to films ever written.

Kinda off topic, but Hayer, who not only has the greatest voice ever by voicing Solid Snake and the "EA SPORTS, It's in the game", apparently is a great writer as well. He's an animal.
 
Re: Who Watches the Watchmen?

Time for a little "Watchmen" update.

Zach Snyder inserted a subliminal frame of Rorschach into a trailer for "300" and here it is:

rorshachtesten3.jpg


Still not sure how they are going to cast this part in a way that preserves the surprise reveal of his identity mid-story. If the unmasked version was largely silent and had good enough makeup and was only seen in brief shots then it might work. We were seeing Christian Bale the whole time in "The Prestige" and most people didn't catch it--maybe the same approach can work here.
 
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Re: Who Watches the Watchmen?

As Arte Johnson used to say: "Veeerry interesting!"
 
Re: Who Watches the Watchmen?

Here's a recent interview with director Zach Snyder promoting 300. I just included the section towards the end where he started to talk about Watchmen.

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I guess word on the street is that you’re going to bring this kind of fidelity to Watchmen and sticking close to Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon’s original work. Is that true?

Yeah. I feel like where we are with the script right now is, in some ways, the closest that it’s been in any iteration to the graphic novel, in the sense that we’re trying to keep as much of the things that make the graphic novel awesome. That goes to everything: 1985, R-rating, everything. Which, by the way, it was never going to be before.

It was a PG-13 previously.

Sure.

Is Warner Bros happy with an R?

No. They’re mad at that. T hey don’t want an R-rated movie, but they’re cool with me. They’re like, ‘OK, if that’s what you think, Snyder. But it’s a bummer.’ [laughs] They have to leave a lot of money on the table.

Right. You can’t have the 15 year olds in there.

Exactly. But on the other hand, Watchmen is Watchmen, and I said, ‘Guys, the reason this movie works is that it’s counter. It’s anti.’ I believe audiences are ready for what’s the next step of the genre. It’s an exhausted genre right now, at least that’s what I believe.

That’s interesting, because while Watchmen has been under development for decades, but the book is a critique of the superhero genre, and you couldn’t have done that on film until now, when audiences are very used to the conventions of the genre.

Absolutely. That’s the cool part about it, for me anyway. Your movie audience is basically where your comic book audience was when the graphic novel was written – you’re basically in a place where you can make a satirical comment about a superhero and the audience will get it, because they have the frame of reference.

I’ve heard some interesting rumors about Watchmen, that the cast isn’t going to be like 300, which is a bunch of actors who aren’t marquee names, but rather that you’re talking to some very big names.

You know, we are and we aren’t. I gotta say I think we are when it’s appropriate, but it’s not driving the movie. There were some people who I was considering who are big names, but it’s exactly that at this point – we’re just talking about it. When you’re in the early stages of talking about a movie what happens is that everybody goes, ‘Tom Cruise! Brad Pitt!’ That’s the first conversation, and then you end up with the actual people that are going to be in the movie.

I heard rumors that Tom Cruise was actually interested.

He was interested. I did talk to him for quite a while. To be honest.

Ozymandias, would that be the role?

That was the role.

...

A lot of people have said that Watchmen should be a mini-series or whatever, but my feeling is that you want production value with Watchmen. The fans want to see it awesome and they want a lot of it. It’s hard, and it’s a trade-off, if you want it to be as good as it can be.

You’re really going to shoot the Tales from the Black Freighter, huh?

That’s my hope. My hope is to shoot the Tales from the Black Freighter as a supplement for the DVD, for the ‘real’ Watchmen.

Anybody else approaching this material, that would be the first thing they’d cut. It’s interesting to see how you’re approaching this – keeping that in really shows how you’re thinking.

For me it goes back to the why of Watchmen. The why of it is almost like what I was saying about Frank’s point of view. It’s funny, because Watchmen, politically – I don’t think Alan Moore could be any more opposite of Frank Miller. I think it gives you a little bit of an idea of how I approach it; the fact that I go from Frank to Alan shows that to me it’s about the work, what they work is, what they’ve done with the work and what it represents. They’ve both, in their own way, innovated, and they’re both geniuses in this convention we call graphic novels or comic books.
 
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