Watchmen! Rorschach Revealed.

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Grand Master

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Zack Snyder spoke with Dark Horizons about the recent sneak of The Watchmen and the audience?s reaction, especially to the altered ending.

"We had the best test scores in the history of Warner Bros. with 300 and I kept telling them look the movie is not like 300, don't think that it is - it's not going to be the same experience,? Snyder said. ?Some people are going to go 'what the f**k is this' and I go that's ok. That's the thing that you fight... The one thing that was cool was that anyone who had read the graphic novel who was at the screening rated the film 'excellent', for me I'm like 'I'm done'."

So about the squid and the ending?

"The fans, god love 'em, they're all up in arms about the squid,? he said. ?What they should be up in arms about are things like shooting the pregnant woman, 'God is real and he's American', whether that's in the movie. That's my point of view, maybe I'm crazy.

"The squid was not in the movie when I got the script, the squid was never in any draft that I saw. My point is only that there was this elegant solution to the squid problem that I kind of embraced. I'm a fan of the thing as much as anyone, I was saying what are we going to do about this before I even read the script."

He confirmed a second trailer will be released this coming Friday when Quantum of Solace hits theaters in America. "I just saw the final version of it this morning... it's a little bit more story, a teeny bit more like a full trailer. This is much more like 'someone's picking off costume heroes'. You'll get a sense of the characters plight you know, 'we were supposed to make the world a better place... what happened to the American Dream'."

A third trailer will be released in early 2009, prior to the March 6 release date.

"The film's pretty much done in my book. There's still some visual effects shots which I'm reviewing... there's probably close to 2000 effects shots in the film" he added.

Snyder?s next film will be his first animated project, Guardians of Ga'Hoole, coming in 2010.

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  • 3 weeks later...
Grand Master

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Zack and Deborah Snyder, the husband-and-wife directing/producing team behind the upcoming Watchmen movie, told SCI FI Wire that the film's final length hasn't yet been approved, but that it is getting shorter.

"We're getting really close," producer Deborah Snyder said in a telephone interview on Nov. 18. "We're at two hours and 35 minutes."

Director Zack Snyder added: "The movie's pretty long ... compared to 300, which was an hour and 58 minutes. The director's cut [of Watchmen] is about three hours and 10 minutes long. It has even more than the theatrical version, as far as the detail that gets even closer to the graphic novel."

Zack Snyder has been trying to be as faithful as possible to Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' seminal graphic novel, which tells a complex story of superheroes in an alternate-universe 1985 New York. The graphic novel interpolates other comics and book excerpts into its narrative, something Zack Snyder has been trying to approximate in his film as well.

Zack was shooting an animated version of the graphic novel's comic-within-a-comic, Tales of the Black Freighter, which is envisioned as a separate DVD release coinciding with Watchmen's theatrical debut in March. Eventually, his plan is to edit the Black Freighter material directly into Watchmen, presumably for a home-video release.

"The Black Freighter version of the movie that we're working on--which has the ins and outs of the Black Freighter comic book woven through it, with an animated version of the Black Freighter--will be about three hours and 40 minutes," Zack said. "So there's a huge epic version of Watchmen, which will probably come out after the movie's theatrical release, for hardcore [fans]."

Fans of the graphic novel know that a minor character in Watchmen reads "Marooned," an issue of Tales of the Black Freighter, in which pirates of the title pirate ship wreck a young seaman's vessel, stranding him on a deserted island. Surrounded by the bodies of his dead shipmates, the mariner concocts a gruesome plan to make his way off the island in a desperate attempt to reach his home, wife and children ahead of the pirate ship.

"As you watch it, you can have this experience where it's like the graphic novel," Zack Snyder said. "I haven't shied away from trying to enjoy the artwork. It's been fun to make some of those pictures real." Watchmen opens March 6, 2009 --Resa Nelson

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Grand Master

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'Watchmen' motion comic launches on iTunes

A Watchmen motion comic has launched on the UK iTunes store to tie in with the upcoming movie.

Based on Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons's acclaimed graphic novel, an issue of the motion comic will be released every week in the lead-up to the release of Zack Snyder's movie adaptation on March 6.

Explaining the idea behind the format to DS, Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons said: "It's a new kind of form. It's somewhere between a comic book and an animation - the Watchmen motion comic was adapted from a comic book and has been animated. The real difficulty in doing it is the pictures all have to be taken apart, foregrounds separated from backgrounds and then reintegrated so they can move.

"I think this is the first flag in the sand and once people get used to the medium it's a form that could have quite an interesting effect on the comics industry."

Gibbons added that he found it "amazing" to see his original comic cross onto platforms such as animation and video games.

"To see it break out into these different things is amazing," he remarked. "It's amazing that after 20 years it's still got the appeal. I never dreamt of motion comics before. I suppose we thought of movies, but certainly there weren't many computer games around when we did that. There was maybe Harrier Attack, three little pixels."

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'Watchmen' hero compared to Hitler

Watchmen co-creator Dave Gibbons has compared the story's protagonist to Adolf Hitler and Margaret Thatcher.

Portrayed by Jackie Earle Haley in the upcoming movie adaptation, the masked vigilante Rorschach uses extreme violence in his quest to find out who is murdering his former superhero colleagues.

Gibbons told Digital Spy: "I can almost imagine him entering into the language with people saying 'Don't do a Rorschach on me, man'. He's very elemental, a very novel character.

"Just as all the characters are archetypal - there's the Batman equivalent, the feisty female heroine, the Superman - Rorschach is like the gumshoe detective or the masked vigilante taken way out of everyone's comfort zone. The ultimate vigilante where everything is black and white.

"I put him in the same kind of bag as Hitler and Margaret Thatcher - you might not like them but you can't deny that there's something very attractive about someone who has no grey areas."

Gibbons revealed that a scene taken straight from the comic, which sees Rorschach butcher a dog, has contributed to the movie being handed an 18 certificate.

"It is an 18 certificate," he confirmed. "I'd like to point out that no dogs were harmed during the filming of the movie! There is canine mayhem!"

Watchmen is released in cinemas on March 6, 2009.

Grand Master

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Fox Win Watchmen Lawsuit!

Warner Bros. just received a pretty crappy Christmas gift. The New York Times is reporting that Gary A. Feess, a judge in the United States District Court for Central California, intendeds to grant 20th Century Fox?s claim that it owns a copyright interest in Watchmen, the highly anticipated movie shot by Warners and Legendary Pictures and set for release in March.

Fox has been seeking to prevent Warner from releasing the film and at an earlier hearing the Judge believed that issues in the case could be settled only at a trial, which was scheduled for late January.

Judge Feess said he had reconsidered and concluded that Fox should prevail on crucial issues, saying ?Fox owns a copyright interest consisting of, at the very least, the right to distribute the ?Watchmen? motion picture.?

The decision was disclosed in a five-page written order issued today and a more detailed order is expected soon. Judge Feess advised both Fox and Warner to look toward a settlement or an appeal. Fox could by all accounts delay the film from its March 6 release date, but what will probably end up happening is Fox will get a portion of the film?s box office earnings.

Fox acquired rights to the Watchmen graphic novel in the late 1980s for producer Lawrence Gordon (Die Hard, Hellboy), but eventually dropped its own plan to make a movie from its story. Consequently, Gordon is a producer on the upcoming Warner Watchmen film.

The Warner production is directed by Zack Snyder (300) and stars Patrick Wilson, Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Carla Gugino, Jackie Earle Haley and Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

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Syanide

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That's lame. I hope the movie doesn't get pushed back.

And I was re-reading the comic again. I still think it might not work well, but hope it will. There's just too much stuff to kick out in order to meet the time limitations (of what, two hours?). I don't want to miss a thing :(

Grand Master

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10elshu.jpg

Not that we didn?t already expect this but, an attorney for 20th Century Fox told AP that thstudio is planning to continue to seek an injunction to prevent the release of Watchmen.b> U.S. District Court Judge Gary Feess ruled last week that Warner Bros had infringed on 20th Century Fox?s rights to develop and distribute a movie adaptation of Alan Moore?s Watchmen graphic novel.

A Warner Bros.? attorney told the AP that hhe believes ?a trial is necessary and a settlement unlikely.? As of right now, a trial is still scheduled for January 20th to decide the remaining issues. If Warners and Fox can?t reach a settlement before that date, it is likely that the Judge will grant the injunction which will at very least push back the release date of the comic book movie adaptation until a settlement is agreed upon.

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Grand Master

Hurmoth

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I'm really torn on this issue. I don't think it would be right to see it postponed or not released at all, but on the other hand Warner Brothers didn't own the rights. There's no two ways about it. I would have ruled in favor of 20th Century Fox too.

Now let's just hope Warner Bros aren't idiots and they make a proposal that 20th Century Fox can't refuse. Or one that the judge won't let them refuse.

Grand Master

Hurmoth

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Nope, I don't really care who's right and who's wrong. Sure, Warner should have cleared the issues before starting to make it, but now I just want to see it... So I hope Fox won't be too greedy.

If you owned the rights to something and someone else stole it from you, you'd think differently.

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Syanide

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Warners owns DC Comics. It has more to do with Watchmen than Fox ever will. The way I see it, Fox was one in the line of many companies who tried to develop a movie adaptation, and it failed. The rights to the movie got back to Warner, we now finally have a finished movie, but due to some technicality, Fox will try to prevent it happening.

And I completely agree, the rights to something should be respected. But it's not like this is emotional or something for Fox, because Watchmen was never a product of theirs, or any sister/child company, they're not protecting anyone's intelectual right to the "product". All they want to do is cash in a quick buck for something they didn't give a sh*t about ten years ago.

Whose protecting Alan Moore's fight to stop it from happening? He's been vocal against movie adaptations of his work (if someone made that "League of Extraordinary Gentlmen" movie atrocity based on my work I'd be pretty much pi*sed of, too). To me only he has the complete right to the comic (of course with Dave Gibbons).

Grand Master

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Attorneys for rival studios fighting over the release of Watchmen told a federal judge on Friday that they're having fruitful settlement talks, reports The Associated Press.

Attorneys for 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros. asked the judge to delay a hearing Friday so those discussions can continue over the weekend.

U.S. District Judge Gary Allen Feess agreed to continue the hearing but says a trial over whether to block the film's March release is still set for Jan. 20.

Lou Karasik, who is representing Fox, told Feess that the delay would be "very, very helpful" to settlement discussions he deemed "productive."

Friday's revelation surprised Feess, who noted that Warner Bros. had been seeking to move up the Jan. 20 trial to next week, citing the film's marketing campaign and its March 6 release date.

Fox sued in February to stop the release of Watchmen, claiming Warner Bros. violated its interests by filming the tale. Feess agreed last month that Fox appears to have the right to distribute the film.

[SHH]

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