Zack Snyder is riding high right now thanks to a boffo opening weekend 300 just enjoyed (bringing in more money in one weekend than it cost to make!) Snyder wrote the screenplay for, and directed, 300, and is on tap to direct the Watchmen movie at last report. I was personally disappointed when Paul Greengrass lost out on that chance last year (or the year before), when the backing was pulled out for it. Greengrass followed other non-starters like Terry Gilliam and Darren Ananofsky before him, except that Paul had actually gotten some significant distance into pre-production before the carpet was unceremoniously yanked. Since then, the project languished for awhile, but now has started up again, but this time with Snyder named as director.
So what should we expect from Snyder? Well, from today's edition of The Comic Reel, on Comic Book Resources, comes the following snippet from him re: Watchmen:
"The thing about Watchmen is that I'm looking to make a movie that looks more like Taxi Driver than Dick Tracy [laughs]. People bring that up to me 'Is it like Dick Tracy?' because that's colorful. Watchmen as a printed medium references comic books itself. It goes 'Look, I'm a comic book' and you read it, you're like 'You're fucking blowing my mind!' But that's what it tries to do, it draws you in by being a comic book. I think my responsibility is to draw the audience in by saying 'Look I'm just a movie' and then you get in there and it fucks you up. That's my hope anyway. It is a weird movie. When you see the trailer and you go 'Okay that looks like Richard Nixon. Dude that blue guy is in fucking Vietnam, what is this?' There's a song you can not put in a Vietnam war movie and it's 'Ride Of the Valkyries' which should not be put it in any movie because of Apocalypse Now. But in Watchmen, you can imagine a sequence in Watchmen where Dr. Manhattan is 100 feet tall stomping through the jungles of Vietnam with Hueys all over him, zapping the Vietcong while 'Ride of the Valkyries' is playing. It is transcendent of itself so you can reference Apocalypse Now and that's okay. It is pop culture."
(You can also read the whole Snyder interview at Suicide Girls which has a tiny bit more about Watchmen but is mostly about 300.)
Well, I have to admit he's got vision! I love that directors are starting to use the comics themselves as starting points for the storyboards, instead of just lifting the characters and then trying to re-define them for the silver screen. With the CGI technology available today, I think you really could pull off Watchmen, at least technically. With that concern taken care of, the other two big questions always used to be, "What do you cut out?" and "How do you change it to work now that the Cold War's over?" At 300+ pages, you're still probably stuck picking and choosing what to keep, if you want to come in under 4 hours. But I really hope Snyder - or whoever eventually gets to actually make it - will keep the context the same as Moore wrote it, regardless of where we are right now politically. As Snyder touches on above, there are some pretty damn fine images in the comic, as only Alan Moore could imagine them. And wouldn't it be mind-blowing to see them put on film finally?
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9 comments:
I somehow misremembered that Dark City was based on an existing comic book, but it's an original film. Still, I believe Ebert mentions in his commentary that Proyas shot the movie as if it were a live-action paper comic: still camera, framing, perspectives, etc. And it makes perfect sense to adapt comics, since (as you point out) a lot are really prebuilt storyboards.
Sin City is often cited (including by me) as the example of porting a comic book straight to film. I remember being very skeptical about how well that was going to work, during the months leading up to its release. I was a fan of the comics - I've got them all, in trade paperback form - but couldn't imagine you could put those scenes into a movie and not have it seem... well, silly!
But I also remember sitting in the theatre watching Sin City for the first time, and thinking, "Holy shit... it actually works!" And the fact that Vicki walked out raving about the movie spoke volumes about how well it worked.
Still, those of us who've suffered throught the ups and downs of the beast-known-as "the Watchmen movie" lo, these past 20+ years, (hi Tim!) are well aware of the immense odds stacked up against it. Against it being made, first... and against it being any good, if it ever does get made.
But fanboys can still dream...
Can't speak to its faithfulness to the comics, but Sin City is one that's gone way down in my estimation since I saw it. It's technically impressive, but the more I think about it the more I'm bothered by the unrelenting misogyny and wanton violence. Sure, it's a noir film so it's going to include those elements, and the comic aspect of it means it's going to be over the top, but I'm not willing to grant those as excuses. The further out I get from it the more offensive it becomes.
You're far from the first person to object to that aspect of the series (in comic or film form) and I can't fault you for it.
The one thing I'll say, not in an attempt to change your mind but simply to put it out there, is that I'm sure Miller believes that Sin City features a set of the most empowered women ever in literature. His Old Town prostitutes work for themselves, rather than for male pimps, and apparently by choice. Again, Miller has a skewed view, to be sure, but then again everyone in Basin City is screwed up, male and female.
I refuse to watch most gangster movies because I think they tend to glorify organized crime, which I find repugnant. So I can certtainly appreciate your stance.
hmm. Thanks for the news and commentary Matt. I'm actually hopeful about the thing and really really enjoyed Snyder's Dawn of the Dead. He seemed to capture and update the banality of urban life (with Zombies) from Romero's original.
Never did see Sin City, but the other reason that I'm hoping this does not suck, was that V for Vendetta was not a bad movie. The comic was also plot heavy, yet somehow the script made a lot of sense.
So stuff to cut/go by in passing:
- the Pirate story
- the newsstand + kid
- the 40s version of the Superheros
Keep:
- All the political stuff of 'Who watches the watchmen. If this manages to come out before the Patriot act gets watered down and bush is out of office, it would be one more commentary on the times.
- Would love to see how a world that is not polluted (because Dr Manhatten has invented super-batteries) is still just as screwed up ala Taxi Driver.
- Keep as much of Dr Manhatten as possible
- Perhaps get rid of Adrian Veldt. There is too much back story on him. Come up with some other bad/good guy.
Change who did it? That's pretty radical. But I agree, that whole twist was my least favorite part of the story, didn't quite seem believable. Or at least, pales in importance to the 80% of the rest of the content.
I wonder if the Adrian Veidt master plan aspect of Watchmen is one of those contextual things, like how people 30 years from now won't be able to believe how crazy the US government was in the years right after 9/11? Moore's stance, I think, was that nuclear war (in the 80s) seemed inevitable, and if you were the smartest person on the planet and could see this thing coming, what would you be willing to do to prevent it? Something that gets missed when people read Watchmen, I think, is that Veidt is a hero in his own mind. And if you boiled it down to, "To save six billion people would you sacrifice one million?" it's not that hard a decision.
But again, if you didn't grow up under the Spectre of Nuclear Armageddon, it probably seems silly. Have to see what Snyder does to address that in the film.
Oh, and I forgot to mention: it's a premise of the story that his scheme, outlandish though it seems - (fake) alien creature teleports into NYC and kills massive numbers of people by inflicting terrible psychic shock as it dies - works! There's some question as to whether it'll continue to work, but at the time, the nuclear powers of the planet unite to prepare their defense against a common enemy. Almost everything in the 12 issues revolves around the threat of the nuclear war or the crazy plot to avert it.
Interesting... wasn't the 6B-vs-1M question also used by Linderman in the most recent Heroes? Or did I read something to that effect somewhere else (most likely CBR)?
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