Friday October 17, 2008
Watching over Watchmen
By MICHAEL CHEANG
Director Zack Snyder reveals what he has up his sleeve for one of next year’s most anticipated movies, Watchmen.
"Hey, you want to do this Watchmen thing we have? It’s a comic book, and it has to be hilarious.”
Thank goodness the clueless studio representative who said that was talking to Zack Snyder, otherwise next year we would be watching a very different live-action film adaptation of the best-selling, critically-acclaimed graphic novel.
It may not be as mainstream as Spidey, Supes or Bats; but to most comic book fans, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen is THE greatest comic book ever written.
So revered is it amongst geeks that to call it a mere “comic book” is tantamount to sacrilege; and all the goodwill Snyder generated after his success with 300 won’t save him from the lynching they would give him if he screws it up.
Fortunately, he is well and truly aware how big a deal Watchmen is to its fans, being a huge fan of the book himself. “When I started out, I knew I had to be true to the graphic novel, not least for the fans. I believe that each of those hardcore fans is worth 20 ordinary people, maybe more,” he said, during an interview at the San Diego Comic Convention in July.
Director Zack Snyder referring to the bible of making Watchmen, the movie “They are the ones who would drag the ones who aren’t clued in to watch the movie. So if the movie sucks ... then the ones who don’t know anything about it would be saying, ‘Hey, no one is talking about it’, and it’s screwed.”
With that in mind, Snyder went all out to make the movie the way he wanted to - from hiring non-A-listers to head the cast, to making it an R-rated movie and sticking to the non-linear, flashback-heavy structure of the novel.
“In 300, the picture was bigger than even the story. In the case of Watchmen, it’s about the ideas,” he explained. “To me the ideas are bigger than the visuals, and we really tried to stay with them all the way.”
Likening comics to modern-day mythology, with superheroes as the mythical gods, Snyder went on to praise Alan Moore for what he did to that perception. “What Alan did was awesome. He was like, ‘Those gods you worship are broken. As broken as we are’,” said Snyder.
The film stars Patrick Wilson, Jackie Earle Haley, Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Matthew Goode, Stephen McHattie and Carla Gugino. Set in 1985, the film follows a group of former vigilantes as war begins to break out between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Unlike most superhero movies, Watchmen concentrates not on a single central character, but on the entire ensemble of “masked heroes”, all of whom have no superpowers at all (with the exception of Dr Manhattan). And instead of the usual linear structure of normal comic books, Moore told the story of each character of Watchmen in a series of flashbacks that flitted back and forth between present day events, all of which were essential to the overall plot, and made the story that much richer.
“Ninety per cent of the flashbacks in Watchmen are to explain characters. The main story is actually very simple, which is good for me because it allows me to go all over the place with the characters,” he said. “For example, the Comedian’s funeral ... he is buried an HOUR into the movie, and that’s like a long time for a movie! A Hollywood version of Watchmen would have it done by the first 15 minutes and then got on with the investigation.
“But to me, when those characters are standing by that graveside, I felt that there was a lot of work to be done with all of them.”
With the focus on character development rather than just a series of big, flashy action money shots, Snyder thought it best to put together an ensemble of character actors rather than hire big name actors.
“The entire cast is made up of actors who are not typical A-list stars. I cast them based on their characters. I’d have a meeting with them and they would blow me away and I’d say OK. That’s that,” he said. “The studio wasn’t too crazy about it, but based on what we’d done with 300, they figured it would be the best way to do it.
“And frankly, it also meant that I could use the money for the movie. If I’d put two giant stars in the movie, that’s 40 million less I got to spend, which is a big sum, especially on an R-rated movie.”
He has, however, come under pressure to make the film shorter and more audience-friendly, something he reluctantly agreed to. “I’m trying to make it shorter because I respect my partners, but on the other hand I also have to say that when it’s not Watchmen I have to stop,” he said, adding that he has not spoken to Alan Moore about the project.
“Alan has his stand and I don’t want to mess with that. But one thing I would hope for is that the only thing that could come out of it is hundreds of thousands of the books will be sold.”
Watchmen will be released in March 2009.
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