and I think it’s good news (that is if you think they can make a successful try of filming the book. up for debate): Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach!
Here’s the link : http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1565557/20070726/story.jhtml
Well, there’s more things to be concerned about that overjoyed about when it comes to trying to turn the Greatest Comic of All Time™ into a movie, but that actually sounds interesting. He is a great actor and has the right physical size and presence…
Now Crudup and Dr. Manhattan - hmm, THAT could be interesting…
Waitaminnit - the blurb positions Rorschach as the lead?! If I had to simple-down the narrative, I would’ve assumed that Nite Owl/Dreiberg (and Silk Spectre) would be the lead(s)…
Hmm…
Here’s all the casting, including Haley’s Little Children co-star Patrick Wilson as Nite Owl:
I don’t know. I’ve never really seen anyone as the lead in Watchmen and would have a lot of trouble picking one character as the “main character.” If you really needed to pick one, I would lean toward Rorschach, but that’s mainly because I tend to relate to him better than I did to Nite Owl.
It seemed to me like a lot of the story was told from his perspective, which made what happened to him in the end a bit shocking. Nite Owl seemed more a cookie cutter superhero who got involved in the investigaton after Rorschach instigated it. There’s kind of a Cyclops/Wolverine, Batman/Superman interplay between the two of them, so it’s hard to pin down who the lead really is.
No, Nite Owl is the main POV character in the comic. Rohrshach is just the person who finds the Mcguffin. It’s Nite Owl who learns and grows and is the sane center of the madness.
But the casting is wrong. The characters are way too young; it’s specifically mentioned that Nite Owl and Ozymandius (and Silk Specter) are in the 40s.
Perhaps you should worry about this… 
It is strange, though, how sympathetic Rorschach is, although he’s completely psycho, ugly, uncouth, and vile-smelling.
Let’s start a poll: Will the movie stink? My guess is that it’ll be an interesting failure that completely fails to capture the gloomy atmosphere of the series.
It will be the kind of movie where “Kryptonite” by 3 Doors Down is the tune associated with Dr. Manhattan.
Chuck is utterly right, here. The center of the narrative isn’t Rohrshach or Ozymandias or even Dr. Manhattan. It’s Nite Owl supported by Silk Spectre. All the others do things that the two leads react to and explore.
Hell, one of the main reasons that Rohrshach died is because, unlike Nite Owl, he wasn’t CAPABLE of growing and learning. His inflexible mental framework made him choose death (which came at his request from Manhattan and not as part of Viedt’s plan) rather than attempt to grow.
Rohrshach, by being such a damaged psychopath (let’s admit it) is there as an instruction for what could happen to those who can’t learn, as Nite Owl and Silk Spectre did.
Sorry to borderline-threadshit, but for me it’s bad news.
ETA: thanks for the update though, I’m very nervous about the conversion to film, but still like news.
It really should be done as a loooong, big-budget miniseries by HBO or the SciFi Channel, but I’m cautiously optimistic, and will be excited to eventually see it on screen. None of these casting decisions bothers me, and I think the cast has real potential overall.
Please, Og, don’t let it suck!
Heh, like the watchmen is as simple as that.
Rohrshach is the investigative force who uncovers the plot, so clearly he’s the lead
Then again, really it’s all about the evil plot he uncovers, right? So it’s all about the insane evil genius.
But really, it’s all about Manhattan. After all, he’s the one that has to reconcile his humanity with his godlike abilities
Then again, if it hadn’t been for SS, would he have come back at all? So maybe it’s all about her.
In fact, you could make a case that Nite Owl is just a spectator. He’s just reacting to what’s going on about him. He doesn’t actually do anything.
Nah, all in all I’d say it’d be a very poor conversion of the comic to film if they make it just a straight narrative from Nite Owl’s perspective.
Why would you say something like that? Zach Snyder has made two excellent action movies so far, and has the utmost respect and understanding for the Watchmen source material. I wouldn’t dismiss the project out of hand, especially given the cast of relatively unknown actors (a very good sign, if you ask me).
Eh, it’s been a few years. Probably worth a reread. We all know it’s not as simple as having one character as the lead. The director is the same guy behind the Dawn of the Dead remake and 300. The writer did the first two X-men flicks. Might not be bad.
Manhattan was the center of the plot. The story was mainly about the effect his presense had on the world.
Ozymandias initiated the story but we don’t realize this until the end.
Rorschach was the character who moved the story along.
And Night Owl was essentially the stand-in for the reader.
Almost certainly. First, comic books like science fiction are a genre where most filmmakers feel a need to dumb down the source material so the audience will “get it” - a strange instinct seeing as how the audience “got” the source material itself. Second, it’s a long and complicated plot that would be impossible to include in its entiriety so a lot of stuff will have to be left out. Third, the series was written and set back during the cold war and we no longer live there. Fourth, and I think this is the real deal breaker, a lot of the worth of Watchmen was media specific - it was a comic book about comic books. It was like Pulp Fiction in that aspect - that was a movie about movies and even a brilliant author wouldn’t have been able to do it as effectively as a novel.
That’s why it’s hard to turn it into a movie. Much too complex for two hours.
However, any good adaptation can’t concentrate on Rohrshach. He has the information, but the story is not just about Ozymandias’s plot (and, alas, I bet that’s what it will be reduced to – a madman trying to scare the world).
Rohrshach does not learn or grow, and dies because of it. Nite Owl (and Silk Spectre) do, and any story that does the book justice needs to concentrate on the charater development, otherwise it’s just fanboy nonsense.
Rohrshach merely discovers the McGuffin. He’s Anabella Smith from The 39 Steps. Nite Owl and Silk Spectre are the ones who have the depth to make this more than the type of superhero story that Moore was trying to subvert.
The book really has no lead, but I think that Rorschach is the most interesting character, the most complex and the one that requires the most careful casting. I never would have thought of Jackie Earle Haley before his recent comeback (I still think of him as the delinquent in the Bad News Bears movies) but I kind of like the choice.
I never heard of most of the others. The dude cast as the Comedian looks awfully young.
I understand they’ve decided to cut out the pirate story and a lot of the flashbacks for this to make it more or less just about the frontline, present day story. I worry about that. I think they’re risking losing a lot of the story’s complexity that way and making it resemble exactly the kind of conventional superhero story that Moore was trying to subvert. I really hope hey get that Watchmen is not X-Men.