I just saw this little blurb (down at the very bottom) which talks about a new Hellboy sequel and then quotes:
I’m a little out of the comic loop since I’ve become obsessed with manga and learning Japanese. Is there a comic called “The Watchman”? (I’ve searched but don’t see anything) Or is he probably talking about “The Watchmen” and just got misquoted?
I almost hope it’s not “The Watchmen” he’s talking about. I enjoyed “Hellboy” but it wasn’t amazing and I wonder if the producers could handle the themes of “The Watchmen”…
Watchmen Will not work on the big screen. That ending will not be allowed. The grim darkness of tone will not be allowed. The fact the ‘action’ is really only a backdrop for the intensity of the story will not be allowed.
Watchmen makes The Thing by John Carpenter look like the Wizard of Oz and I haven’t seen anything as dark as The Thing in a long time. Who could even direct it?
Hmmm, I’m apprehensive. I actually think the Watchmen would work best as a miniseries. I don’t think there’s enough time in a motion picture to cover everything. And I think the Brits could keep the darkness (if they only had access to a decent budget). I guess we’ll see…
As much as I’d like to see a Watchmen movie, I just don’t see how anyone could pull it off. It is on too grand a scale, and as others have pointed out, the emotions of the characters are a big part of the book. Perhaps a mini-series, as has been suggested, but not a standard Hollywood “We need more 'splosions!”-fest.
Now a Swamp Thing movie, based on Alan Moore’s work, or a Doom Patrol or Animal Man movie based on Grant Morrison’s work…[drool]. Pick a story arc, any story arc, and I’d be there.
The Watchmen will mever work as a movie. Never ever ever.
Too complex to cover in two hours (unless they do a LOTR style nine-hour epic).
Too dark for Hollywood, especially as it’s a superhero story.
And inextricably bound up in the time period it was written (The plot involved the threat of a nuclear exchange with the USSR following a Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, for one thing). This alternate 1980’s could be successfuly portrayed, but it would be damn hard.
Then again, I said much the same about LOTR, and was wrong there.
Here is Llyod Levin’s IMDB entry. Kind of spotty. He produced the Tomb Raider movies, K-Pax, Mystery Men, and Boogie Nights. My conclusions: he has a slightly-more-open-than-normal mind, but there is no evidence he’s the visionary this project needs. There have been persistant rumors that John Cusak (known in my household as The Great Cusak) is attached to play Night Owl, which could work. The choice of director will be absolutely critical .
If it only sucks half as hard as The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, it will be a miracle.
I suspect it will suffer from many of the same problems.
Apart from difficulties of scale, adapting Alan Moore for film seems like an ambitious task – strange to say it, but his style is more literary than pictorial. I wouldn’t say it’s impossible to pull it off, so long as the responsible parties understand the source, but if they approach it like a “superhero movie” it’ll be dismal.
Last update I read did indeed have David Hayter attached as Director as well as screenwriter. A while back, there was a review of the Hayter screenplay at Ain’t It Cool News. Also a bit in there about Terry Gilliam passing on the project, he thought it could work as a mini-series rather than a feature.
The reviewer is rather upbeat about the screenplay, though I have my doubts. He states that nobody will miss the omission of the Under the Hood and Tales of the Black Freighter passages. I accept that these would have to be cut for time, but this is why the project will ultimately fail IMO. Along with the character studies of the priciples involved in the central story, the background material and the nature of fate explored in the Black Freighter sequences are what made the book great. Two hours simply is not enough time to establish the character depth which makes the action interesting.
What point is there in turning Watchmen into a movie? It is probably the highpoint in comic-book storytelling. More importantly, it wasn’t trying to mimic the techniques of movies. I think that it is one of the few stories that is wholly dependant on its medium.
Besides, wouldn’t comic geeks want to resist attempts at translation simply because if filmakers did manage to pull it off it would imply that film is a superior medium?
Oh please God, no. I didn’t mind the horrible job they did with League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. As far as I’m concerned, even the comic book was at best a throwaway effort by Moore.
But Watchmen? The depth, complexity, and hundred little sub-plots and exquisitely crafted backstories make it so much harder to deal with.
Anyone know if Alan Moore is saying anything on the subject?
The Black Freighter story is the necessary co-story for the events in the main story. In fact, almost all the commentary on the actions of the characters in the main story isn’t in the main thread, it’s in the “supplementary” material that will have to be lost to translate the main story to a purely visual media. In order to make a movie, you need to loose the ornithological article, most of Rorsach’s diary, the police reports and psychologist’s notes, much of the memoir excerpts, etc. The story you are left with is not the full story of the book.
Which makes me wonder, much like the upcoming I, Robot, what’s the point? The producers are excising what makes the original audience enjoy the book in order to chase a broader mass audience. But the broader mass audience doesn’t recognize, and doesn’t care much about, what little is left. The original audience wants the elements that were excised. If you’ve pissed off the original audience to chase an audience that still doesn’t want what you have left, you have no audience.
In a different setting, I see an analogous thing happen with companies that have loyal, but small markets. They try to change the company or its products to chase a larger market, but lose both. One example off the top of my head: Deja News
They’d have a better shot at making a movie out of the futuristicky Miller/Gibbons work Give me Liberty. Watchmen is too locked into its mid-eighties timeframe to work as a movie today, or at least not without a truly preposterous amount of exposition. Besides, I kinda doubt that anyone will care about the greater motives of the Ozymandias character after he trashes NYC with a giant gynecology model. They’ll either have to drastically change the ending, or try to remind the audience of the ongoing low-level terror of the Cold War.
I can already anticipate the controversy: villain trashes New York in a terroristic surprise attack. Lots of civilian dead. World offers sympathy and support.
The best that can be hoped for is a good movie based on Watchmen. There is no way in hell that the entire thing could be made into a film, in fact I suspect only the main plot could be worked into a movie. This doesn’t mean it’ll be a bad movie, just that it will NOT be Watchmen. It’ll lose much of its punch and the story will be must more simplisitic. This makes me wonder why exactly a studio would pick Watchmen for a movie, but it could turn out to be worth seeing. The bare-bones main plot alone is still very good.