I’ll go first: I want to see John C. Reilly as Rorschach.
That’s what I get for attempting irony in print 
Now, I don’t know the Watchmen. But isn’t the projected 2006 release date a pretty bad sign in itself? I mean, they don’t have a cast yet, they don’t have a screenplay, they’re not even sure of the director, but they’re planning to be done in less than two years? That sounds awfully rushed to me.
Im not trying to be rude, but you don’t seem to be getting it at all.
The world of Watchmen is very realistic in almost all respects. A few scientists have made a few amazing discoveries. There are no inventors cranking out antigravity devices, killer robots, and giant death rays everyweek. There are no hordes of superheroes. You could fit every superhero from the series on a standard schoolbus. I think you could fit all the supervillians as well, but I’d have to double check.
The characters have more realistic motivations, and most use more realistic methods. When Rorschach wants information, he doesn’t use a hypnohelmet, an amazing truth serum, or a clever bluff. He breaks fingers.
Re Tales Of The Black Freighter
You could tell the story without it, but the interweaving of that, the snippets of Under The Hood, and the rest are one of the things that make the Watchmen great. Watchmen has one of the greatest surprises I’ve ever read. All the clues have been strewn throughout story, but I didn’t realize it until it was finally revealed.
"Only once."and all the other clues that the Comedian is her dad.
I agree that it could be made to work as a miniseries. But, there’s no way to tell the story in two and half hours without cutting out major pieces
Less than a month old, so bump with an interesting piece of news:
CHUD.com has a very long, very in-depth three-part interview with the director of the film, Paul Greengrass.
He directly addresses a number of the concerns we all have about this adaptation, namely: How are you gonna cram it all into two hours? How are you gonna update the Cold War setting in a way that makes sense? How can you preserve the original’s theme as a deconstruction of comic-book heroes, in comic-book format, in a radically different medium?
Remains to be seen whether he’ll actually pull it off, of course, but he’s at least focused on the right questions. And, notably, he says he read the material when it first came out, because he was interested in its politics, so he’s at least not a Johnny-come-lately.
So, read and be, if not completely reassured, then at least mollified that he isn’t gonna Ratnerize the thing.
I wish both Greengrass and the interviewer could stay on topic. Not to belittle the Troubles, but I didn’t click the link to read articles on them. What’s with the questions on Bourne? Greengrass goes off on enough detours without encouragement.
Re Moving the story to the present
Won’t work.
With all of his graphs etc, Adrian was able to predict a fullscale nuclear war between the USA and the USSR. How would he have predicted 9-11? Why would he have used his Architects Of Fear plan? As the Comedian says, and he having all kinds of top secret military clearance would know, all-out nuclear war would turn the earth into a “cinder”. All out war between the USA and Al Qaida hasn’t really done that. Where’s the ticking armageddon clock? Why would Adrian expect his AOF plan to work today? He knew that the USSR and USA would cooperate against a common enemy based on the fact that they’d already done so in WW2. What reason would he have for thinking the USA and Al Qaida would call a cease-fire and team up?
Hell, I wonder if you could keep it “relevant” to our times by keeping the US/USSR conflict—and just using that as a metaphor or an analogy for whatever modern socio-political setup you want the audience to connect with. (Kind of like works made during the Cold War using analagous stand-ins for the US and Soviets. Like the Klingons vs. Federation on “Star Trek.”)
Aw, who am I kidding? I predict that they’ll cast Ben Affleck as Nite Owl II; the film will be threatened with an NC-17 rating that’ll be lowered after they cut out an extremely tame scene of Rorschach ripping off a rubber finger; Ozymandias will be “re-imagined” as a rebellious young computer hacker who’s played by an actress who happens to have a “hustler” centerfold; and the whole thing will end at a “rave” taking place in an abandoned steel mill. Soundtrack by Puddle of Mudd featuring Amy Lee. Be sure to play the Playstation 3 game with really crappy controls and players that die if they walk into a wall.
Sorry, I’m pre-bitter.
Bump again: Paramount has put the project into turnaround.
In Hollywood parlance, that means, “We don’t want to make this, but if you can find another home for it, we’ll try to smooth the transition of the project from our house to theirs. Otherwise you’re vapor, pal.”
I predict with the coming success of Batman Begins, the producers of Watchmen won’t have any trouble setting up a dark, adult-oriented superhero project.
Easy. Simply have a Tv showing idealized Superoheros in action, and have a person turn off the show, since they don’t care to watch the history channel, and instead turn to a film about pirates.
I agree with LHOD that this would not be as effective. Besides which, you’d have to alter the timeline of the Watchmen story, have the movie last an awfully long time, or lose all the overlaps between Tales Of The Black Freighter and Watchmen. Plus, we read Tales Of The Black Freighter because a kid who hangs out on a corner by a news stand reads it, without paying for it, then he puts it back. The relationship between the kid and the news stand owner helps build the world of Watchmen. They’ve known each other for years but never bothered to learn each other’s names or anything else. Anonymous, never seen before or again guy, watching a movie doesn’t do that.