Zack Snyder Reveals Watchmen Details

[Motown Marvel]

But I think that the appetite for me is to make a movie that feel's more like Taxi Driver than like Fantastic Four

he's tugging at my heart strings....and i like it....

 

[ShadowBoxing]

In Snyder I trust...he has amazing reverence for comics it seems.

 

[Lighthouse]

His quote about Taxi Driver really gives me hope for his vision of the film, but I'm really scared that WB isn't going to back him up on this one.

 

[Dude_Love]

I've only recently read Watchmen and I loved just how diferent it was. I have high hopes for a film, if it's done right.

For some reason I think Jeff Goldblum would have made a good Nite Owl II, and Dr Manhattan could be Denzel Washington (yes the character is white, but i'm just saying he COULD be a good choice)

 

[Odin's Fury]

I've only recently read Watchmen and I loved just how diferent it was. I have high hopes for a film, if it's done right.

For some reason I think Jeff Goldblum would have made a good Nite Owl II, and Dr Manhattan could be Denzel Washington (yes the character is white, but i'm just saying he COULD be a good choice)

I think Dr. Manhattan is Blue....t:

 

[Chaos Bringer]

meanwhile back in Hollywood:
Exec#1: what of this Watchmen, Walkman, Witchman comic adap? *sniff*
Exec#2: it's a revered book, we've sold millions.
Exec#1*sniff* Really?
Exec#2: yes. Readers hold it in high regard, I recommend we translate, not adapt...
Exec#1: Well so long as we get the hero to fall madly in love with the girl who's in danger*sniffffffff*and make sure the car is fast. Oh oh oh and the bad guy at the end*sniffffff* he's gotta fall like 456789 stories high at the end of the film.
Exec#2: Um, there's no hero in this story...
Exec#1: Right. Well, make one. No one wants to see a film from a comic without a hero. What's the point?!
Exec#2: But we've sold millions of...
Exec#1: 456789 stories high. Make it happen*sniifff*and get Taco Smell on the phone and get me the lic. for a Dr.Manhattan Combo.

 

[Odin's Fury]

SWEET. Blue nuclear tacos.

I'dd buy that.

 

[Antonello Blueberry]

Doc Manhattan? Picture Gerard Butler, painted blue and screaming "Tonight we dine on Mars!"

 

[Shifty]

I've only recently read Watchmen and I loved just how diferent it was. I have high hopes for a film, if it's done right.

For some reason I think Jeff Goldblum would have made a good Nite Owl II, and Dr Manhattan could be Denzel Washington (yes the character is white, but i'm just saying he COULD be a good choice)

Dr.Manhattan never ages so they need to cast someone in his mid to late 20s.

 

[Cinemaman]

Er, that's not actually what he said...

I believe this was an attempt at sarcastic humour on Snyder's part and a gentle dig at the hordes of slavish fanboys (hi guys) out there, as in he's sorry to report that he won't be leading a real mission to the planet Mars in order to shoot those scenes, just as he won't be building a full size fortress down in the Antarctic.

It's clear that CGI will be necessary to recreate these scenes which I'm sure he has every intention of including; he's previously gone on record to say that he won't be going down the 300 (and Sin City before it) route of filming everything against green screen in order to create a deliberate hyper stylised effect.

I hope you are right

 

[Cinemaman]

Doc Manhattan? Picture Gerard Butler, painted blue and screaming "Tonight we dine on Mars!"

LOL, that would be great. Besides, Butler is tall enough for this character (1.88m).

 

[Caliber]

LOL, that would be great. Besides, Butler is tall enough for this character (1.88m).

He would be a good choice for Doc Mahhantan.

 

[Punch]

I really really like that he's keeping the story in the 80s. It certainly sounds like he gets what the book is about. I'm really sorry Greengrass isn't doing this though.

I myself would rather see the book split it to 2 or 3 movies.

 

[Antonello Blueberry]

More from Snyder:
http://iesb.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1883&Itemid=99

IESB: Did this film really open up the door for Watchmen? Just like Sandman, everybody has wanted to do Watchmen forever and it seems like they’ve never been able to put it together in a feature film.

ZS: Yeah, you know what, thank god for me, that’s one thing, that they haven’t been able to put it together yet because I feel like we’re at a good place with it. I think 100% Watchmen is a product of me doing 300 for the studio. They own Watchmen over at Warner Bros. and so when I came back from 300 they said, “Hey, we have this other graphic novel lying around, this thing called, uh, Watchmen? Do you know about that? (laughter) And I said, “Listen, here is the deal…” I knew that at that time when I first came back I said, you know what, I don’t want to make that, do I look stupid? Do I look like I would do that to myself? That’s crazy talk. Don’t ever mention or bring that up again. And then I thought about it and I thought you know what? It’s probably the coolest thing on the planet, to me, really it’s the coolest thing on the planet. And I thought, if I don’t do it someone else will, that’s one thing, you know, and that’s scary. And my other thing was, what else am I going to do that is better? And really the answer was nothing. I really honestly believe that, I have looked around, there’ve been a ton of scripts that have come to Debbie and I and Wes. We’ve looked at our little company and we’ve looked at this that and the other thing and I always go, you know what? Jessica, who is the woman who is my executive over at Warner Bros., she was in the office so I was showing her some of my drawings and some of my ideas for Watchmen and I said, “300 is cool, I think it’s awesome, Dawn of the Dead I think that is cool too, but ****in’ Watchmen is the ****! It is so cool! I am yoked and jazzed everyday that I get to work on it. I don’t mean to rant...but it’s…
IESB: It’s incredible because fans, you know how the fanboy community is…
ZS: Oh yeah…
IESB: If you would’ve pulled a…and I think that Joel Schumacher is a good director, but if you would’ve pulled a Batman Forever, bat nipples or something horrendous like that they wouldn’t allow you to direct it and…
ZS: I wouldn’t allow… They’d be right! (laughter)
IESB: But the community is excited, they’re pumped. They are happy to see that you are directing this. Some directors will dabble a little bit in this genre but then they go back and do this little indie or artsie films but then you have certain directors that get into the genre and they stick with it, Sam Raimi is an example, he just loves the genre, is that something that you are planning in doing? You like this so you are going to this because you enjoy it?
ZS: You know, I guess so. It’s what I want to see so it’s what I want to do. So, I guess in that way, yeah. I mean I don’t think about it as a certain genre per se but I think about it as it’s a cool project, you know. There is a pile of them at the house and I just go, you know what, no that’s all crap, I should just do ****in’ Watchmen, it’s much better. So, have people offered me other genre, graphic novels, comic book and things of that nature? Sure. But are any of them as cool? No. Will I continue to do genre after Watchmen? Probably, just because it’s what I like, you know. The thing that I am writing with my buddy right now is basically in the same world.
IESB: 300 has existed, people respect it in the community. Watchmen, people consider it one of the greatest graphic novels ever, is there a “man in tights” traditional, you know a Batman, Superman, Spider-man type of character that you would really like to tackle?
ZS: I don’t think so, not right now, maybe after but not yet. Someone came in and pitched me Green Lantern and I have been pitched a couple other things. But when you are deep in Watchmen it’s hard to…you know what I am saying?
IESB: Think about anything else.
ZS: It’s really is hard to think about anything else, especially with, we were just talking about, just a second ago, we were talking about Manhattan as just how, you see Dr. Manhattan 100 feet tall walking through the jungles of Vietnam burning the Viet-Con with a couple Hueys off his shoulders, you know. It’s hard to, because it’s political and it’s beautiful and it’s all the things that Fantastic Four could never do, they would never send the Fantastic Four to Iraq, you know, that’s crazy talk. But in the Watchmen world that’s real.
IESB: Do you know how you are setting it up? Is the script completed, it’s done?
ZS: I have a draft of the script that I like a lot, not to say that we won’t work on it more. You are always trying to make it better, the basic concept is there. We are trying to get more money from marketing, to shoot…we wrote a Black Freighter script that basically we would shoot at the same time and maybe with DVD, because basically the script is designed to take the Black Freighter, you can stick the Black Freighter story into the movie, all the bumpers are there, maybe a special release in the theaters. It would probably make the movie 3 hours long. The movie right now is about 2 ½ hours long so…
IESB: You think that it will be a rated R for sure?

ZS: I don’t know how to make it PG-13, you know, I really don’t. I think it would be cool if it was PG-13 just because of how it will change, like when I was 15 I wanted to see that movie but I’m thinking that if it is Rated R, a fifteen year old will get in there anyway. They’ll find it. (Laughter) You know what I am saying? I mean really, I think I saw Excalibur when I was fifteen, you know the original John Boorman’s Excalibur, I think I was younger and they had some rough stuff in that movie.
IESB: Same thing with 300, there’s going to be a ton of kids getting into that.
ZS: Absolutely, yeah absolutely (laughter) How sexy was that one, the original Excalibur, have you seen that film?
IESB: Not in years.
ZS: There’s a good sex scene in that one, with the Knight and he’s in his armor still and, it’s good…
IESB: You know what’s good about the love making scene in your film, they were beautifully shot, it wasn’t a throw away T and A shot or anything, it was great. Going back to Watchmen, do you know where you are shooting? Are you going to do a virtual studio type thing?
ZS: I don’t know where I am shooting, I’m not gonna do a virtual studio, I’m gonna do a mix. You know, Mars and Antarctica will probably be done blue screen but then we’d probably try and build a big New York City backdrop somewhere and recreate our “Watchmen version” of New York City. I’ve generated tons of art and I’m starting to, I’ve done a couple frames of Rorschach and I’ve started to do some tests of Dr. Manhattan and that is fun, it’s fun to try and figure that out.
IESB: Casting, how soon?
ZS: Soon, I think, I’ve been meeting with a lot of people, a lot of cool, cool people.
IESB: Are you going A-list?
ZS: My feeling about it is, with Watchmen you can get actors, I believe, that would never make a comic book movie. Because Watchmen is cool, you know what I’m saying? (laughter) You’d never get Brad Pitt in tights in a normal movie, and I’m not saying he’s any of the guys, I’m actually not talking to him, but he’s the kind of guy you could get because those Ocean’s guys think they are pretty cool. But, they’d be embarrassed to be in Fantastic Four, as they should. (laughter) I don’t mean to dig on Fantastic Four, it’s just so…so, bubble gum, I can’t take it.
IESB: (laughter) So the past few comic book adaptations which is the one you really dug?
ZS: I guess Batman Begins is one of my favorites, of recent time, you know, I just, none of them really, has there been an R-rated graphic novel, like comic book?
IESB: V For Vendetta, I guess…
ZS: V, I guess, is the only one but, I don’t know if it counts 100%, it’s not superheroes. It would be cool, an R-rated superhero movie, that’s just cool, I don’t care what it is. Wolverine would be cool if it was rated R.
IESB: If Fox allows it.
ZS: There’s no way, no ****in’ way that movie is going to be rated-R. I read the script, it’s cool but there’s no way. They asked me about it but I just said, I don’t know. That would be a thing that, if I didn’t have Watchmen, I would be interested in Wolverine.
IESB: Lauren Schuler Donner, we talked to her, and she said they were looking for a lot of different people to direct and Hugh Jackman said they were looking at some great people to direct this thing. Was it recent talk, them wanting you to do it?
ZS: It was right before I went to go do 300, I had a brief dance with X-Men 3.
IESB: Really? No one heard that did they?
ZS: No, that was kept on the down low. I had a dinner with Donner and Hugh, they were psyched about it and they thought it was a really great meeting. And I had a meeting at Fox, where I said, it was funny because I didn’t know the plot at all, and I said, “the awesome thing about X-Men is that they’re the only superheroes who don’t want to be superheroes, that’s cool.” And I said I like that. And they said, “oh my god you know our movie is about that they have this antidote.” And I said, “oh that’s cool, you know, that’s neat.” But I just said, “Look, the deal is, I am doing this thing called 300 and I really don’t want to do anything else.” And they said, “Really? It’s X-Men, it’s awesome.” And I said, “I know it’s awesome but, 300 is kick ass and I can’t even describe to you how hard core it is.”
IESB: It’s Frank Miller man…
ZS: Yeah! You know, the difference is, it’s one thing to do a character movie because they, I believe Hollywood is happy to take a character and make a movie out of it. What they don’t like is graphic novels, it presupposes that the graphic novelist knows how to make a movie better than they do and they don’t like that. They’d rather take a character and say, I’ll show you how to make a movie…blah blah blah, that’s what’s cool about Chris [Nolan] with Batman Begins where he tried to study the mythology of what makes Batman.
IESB: So shooting in Australia, Vancouver, Toronto, here?
ZS: Yeah, someplace like that, no here, they can’t afford that. I’d love to shoot it here there’s just no way.
IESB: So are we talking Superman Returns budget?
ZS: No, no, no. If the movie ends up being R-rated, which it probably will be, you can’t. They won’t spend the money. You gotta…
IESB: Probably trim it down to $100?
ZS: Yeah, it will be below $100 for sure, but the cast will just have to work for cheap, but that’s just…
IESB: But a movie like Watchmen, I think they will…So you have a cool little Watchmen tattoo coming up soon? (laughter)

ZS: I don’t have one no…Jude Law has one you know. Jude Law has the Rorschach tattoo.
IESB: Hmm...any possibility of that angle?
ZS: I don’t know, we’ll see, not as Rorschach, but he could be in the movie.
IESB: That would be awesome.
ZS: We’ll see. There are two guys that have, that are, you’d be surprised, I’ve been meeting with people and you like, really, you like Watchmen? That’s awesome!

 

[Eros]

This movie is never going to get made properly. When I think a perfect Watchmen Movie, I think something along the lines of Bladerunner with superheroes. This movie is going to be nothing like that IMO.

 

[Antonello Blueberry]

This movie is never going to get made properly. When I think a perfect Watchmen Movie, I think something along the lines of Bladerunner with superheroes. This movie is going to be nothing like that IMO.

Based on what? While I don't trust this guy so much, he genuinely sounds like he want to be as faithful as possible to the book. I still can't see how he's going to put the Black Freighter stuff in it, as he said he wanted to do.

 

[Shifty]

Based on what? While I don't trust this guy so much, he genuinely sounds like he want to be as faithful as possible to the book. I still can't see how he's going to put the Black Freighter stuff in it, as he said he wanted to do.

He said in the past that it will likely be a special feature on the DVD and not in the theatrical release.

 

[Odin's Fury]

This movie is never going to get made properly. When I think a perfect Watchmen Movie, I think something along the lines of Bladerunner with superheroes. This movie is going to be nothing like that IMO.

simply the fact that he is planning on doing it as an 80's piece makes me much more trusting of him as a director. It will be a hard film to produce well. But honestly, I would have said the same thing about Sin City, or LOTR as well.

 

[blind_fury]

Zack is a fanboy.

 

[Johnichi Chiba]

God the more Zack opens his mouth, the more I fall in Love...

 

[Motown Marvel]

i think they should go the route of "the fountain" and use little to no CGI, all old school effects. apparently aronofsky saved millions that way.

 

[Rez]

I've always been supportive of Snyder, and his comments only reinforce that. Hope that they sway some of those not as convinced.

As for the cast, I think it would work well with famous and recognizable names taking some of the "public" figures, with unknowns filling out the failures or the vigilantes. Life imitating art kind of thing.

Old past their prime but famous actors playing some of the original heroes.

Big names like Brad Pitt for Ozy.

A total unknown for Rorschach.

Lesser knowns for Dan, etc!

 

[Sun_Down]

No Mars scene? Oh this sucks

I knew someone would misinterpret him on that quote! Relax, he was just saying that he can't actually take the crew to Mars to shoot.

Watchmen is a seriously tall mountain to climb, but Zack really seems to get it, so I'm cautiously optimistic at this point. Casting will be crucial, so hopefully we get some news before too long.

If they make a faithful adaptation and it is a success, it will really elevate the genre and hopefully encourage studios to take a more serious route in comic book adaptations.

 

[C.F. Kane]

Don't know about Brad Pitt for Ozy. Veidt has a slimy aristocratic nature that Brad doesn't have. He's more of a thug. Jude Law would make a better Ozy. Big name, cool presence, and a fanboy to boot, apparently.

And I still say he should use a CGI motion capture Dr. Manhattan. It would cost a few more bucks but I think it would come off well on screen: it sets him apart from the other characters on a very basic level, and that detachment is a key to the character.

But I'm really willing to trust this guy on this. He's talking the talk all the way.

 

[Shifty]

Don't know about Brad Pitt for Ozy. Veidt has a slimy aristocratic nature that Brad doesn't have. He's more of a thug. Jude Law would make a better Ozy. Big name, cool presence, and a fanboy to boot, apparently.

And I still say he should use a CGI motion capture Dr. Manhattan. It would cost a few more bucks but I think it would come off well on screen: it sets him apart from the other characters on a very basic level, and that detachment is a key to the character.

But I'm really willing to trust this guy on this. He's talking the talk all the way.

Law would be great. He did have a little PR trouble last year but nothing too bad. Plus he doesn't have any films after the current one he is shooting.

300 World Premiere Gets Standing Ovation
Source: Warner Bros. Pictures
February 15, 2007

300, one of the highlights of the Berlin Film Festival, had its world premiere last night and received a standing ovation in the sold out Berlinale Palast. The film, inspired by the work of graphic novelist Frank Miller, was attended by director Zack Snyder and cast members Gerard Butler (King Leonidas) and Rodrigo Santoro (Xerxes). The screening was interrupted again and again by spontaneous applause and cheers from the 1700 strong audience.

Said Zack Snyder: "It was awesome to be at the Berlin Film Festival World Premiere and experience the amazing reaction."

That could be Watchmen someday.