Zack Snyder Reveals Watchmen Details - CGI Choices and More!
February 11, 2007
by Alex Billington
Fans of
Watchmen unite - the project is finally moving along positively! Director
Zack Snyder, who's currently out promoting his Spartan epic
300, answered some questions to press about the comic book adaptation. Zack started off by saying, I feel like the movie is in a pretty cool place. I think the script is starting to become pretty cool. He also added that we're trying to get a budget together now and I've been drawing away, you know. I think it's coming along, so they say. Zack also discussed the movie's setting and CGI choices.
Although he wouldn't reveal anything about the actors or who they might be, he did say that, it's cool because in some ways you can get real actors, you don't have to go Hollywood. And also about when production may start, stating they have talked about maybe shooting in the summer - which was also confirmed as a possibility at a later press conference by his wife,
Deborah Snyder, who is an executive producer on both
300 and
Watchmen.
Zack also says he's setting his film in
1985 and comments:
There has been a push on I think everybody's
on the other scripts that exist about trying to update the movie or make it take place in present day, or things of that nature. I think that by setting the movie in 85, by having the Cold War, having Nixon, having all that stuff you reinvigorate what the story is about. It allows all the metaphors
I think what Alan Moore has, in his book, the comic he's made about authority and government and all those things, they're big themes. Maybe if you make that movie right, [then] what that has to say makes people think about what's happening maybe now or in their own lives. That's my hope for what the movie can be.
And finally, he discusses just how much
CGI he may use:
The idea of Watchmen is not to do a CGI movie, but to do it when it's necessary. Like when Doc Manhattan goes to Mars, there's an issue here, we've got to figure that out. We can't go to Mars, I know, a lot people are going to be disappointed by that - but I just don't have the money. Antarctica also, there's no Carnac built there. I know, again, we should probably build it and then go film it there, but I don't think they're going let us do that. So those two things right off the bat you can think about. Dr. Manhattan himself, what do you do, how do you make him - how do you render him. Rorschach's mask. There's things that have to be dealt with and figured out. But I think that the appetite for me is to make a movie that feel's more like Taxi Driver than like Fantastic Four, again. So it's a balance.
Zack also says,
go see 300! as the best way to help
Watchmen (maybe even get a bigger budget) and includes that the studio doesn't understand why it's not
Fantastic Four. I have to remind them, I go, look, it's much more
Strangelove than
Fantastic Four, which they don't like hearing. So if you are a fan of Watchmen, go see
300, and stay tuned for what sounds like an incredible project that may be starting very soon.
source:
http://www.firstshowing.net/2007/02/11/zack-snyder-watchmen/
August can't get here fast enough.
