Watchmen – coming soon
It’s ten minutes to midnight.
Released over twenty years ago between 1986 and 87, to say that Watchmen was an influential success would be a pretty epic understatement. It cemented Alan Moore’s reputation as a writer in the graphic novel medium and since then, more than a fair few of his graphic novels have (much to his chagrin) been adapted for the big screen, most notably V For Vendetta, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Constantine, and Jack the Ripper conspiracy theory yarn From Hell. His treatment of the Joker in his celebrated Batman one-shot The Killing Joke, is widely cited as being a major influence on both Tim Burton’s 1989 movie, the subsequent Batman animated series, and recent outing The Dark Knight.
No Watchmen, no Heroes. Simple as.
The comic book is set in an alternative universe where superheroes exist – it is 1985, and the Cold War is on the verge of becoming a very, very hot one.
In this universe, the USA won the Vietnam War, and Watergate never happened – Nixon is still the President. The West is defended by a small elite corps of licensed superheroes, the most powerful of which, Dr. Manhattan, has given the States an edge over the Soviets. However, things take a turn for the worse – the story begins with the discovery that The Comedian, an ultra-patriotic American superhero is found dead, having been hurled several stories from his apartment.
The masked vigilante Rorschach, himself a wanted man, is convinced that there is a conspiracy afoot, and that all masked superheroes are in mortal danger, and so he sets out to warn his former colleagues. What Rorschach and his associates eventually discover out turns out to be more shocking and profoundly worrying than any of them could have ever imagined.
Stylistically, Watchmen raised the bar for graphic novels, including within its narrative extracts from fictional police and psychiatrists reports, diegetic magazine clippings and articles and chapters from an autobiography written by one of the characters. Watchmen even includes an issue of Tales of the Black Freighter, a fictional pirate-based comic book that is read by one of the characters.
All of these elements, combined with the overall scope of the narrative (hint: it’s pretty darn big) had led many, including its creators to deem the book unfilmable. And so, naturally, scores of people have been trying to film it for the past two decades.
Having languished in development hell for several years, a big screen adaptation is finally clawing its way to a cinema near you. The story of its gestation, production and the legal wranglings that surrounded the movie is as labyrinthine as the narrative on which it is based. The film has seen a number of high profile directors assigned to it, including Terry Gilliam (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Brazil) and Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Ultimatum) as well as X-Men screenwriter David Hayter.
Hayter, perhaps more recognisable as the voice of the gravel-throated Snake from the Metal Gear Solid games, wrote a screenplay, updating the plot from its original 1985 setting to the modern day, his reasoning being that the story had been previously “considered too dark, too complex, too ’smart’. But the [western] world has changed [since 9/11]. I think that the new global climate has finally caught up with the vision that Alan Moore had in 1986. It is the perfect time to make this movie.”
Despite this pretty major temporal shift, Hayter’s treatment of the source material was considered by no less an authority than Moore himself to be “as close as I could imagine anyone getting to Watchmen.”
Hayter looked all set to direct when he was offered the chair in 2001, something which sent Watchmen and Metal Gear fanbois and grrls into full-on froth mode. Having secured Moore’s blessing, Hayter and producer Lloyd Levin (Mystery Men, The Rocketeer and the first Tomb Raider movie) upped sticks and left Universal after falling out over creative differences. The pair tried to get Revolution Studios, (producers of Hellboy) interested, but negotiations fell through.
Hayter reluctantly relinquished the role of director, after it emerged that Warner Bros. would finance the film, so long as the script got a re-write, meaning that the movie you’ll eventually see next year will be set in the eighties as in the original, although several elements of Hayter’s script have been used in the final version, to the extent that he receives a screen credit. Eventually, Zack Snyder, who previously worked on 300 (another comic adaptation) was given the job of director, with Alex Tse (Sucker Free City) writing the script.
All of this studio manoeuvring and wrangling has seen the movie tied up in litigation. It is currently thought that Warners will distribute the film in North America, with Paramount getting distribution rights for the rest of the world. However, Fox believes that ultimately, the rights to distribute the film rest with them, no matter how much money the other studios have thrown at it. The case is due to begin in January next year, a good two months before the film is due to premiere on the 6th of March 2009.
There’s every chance that we might not get to see this film by then, or by next year or even at all. So what’s the point in blogging about a film that might not see the light of day?
The wealth of trailers and pictures currently floating around on the internet suggest that the film will be released – hopefully the inertia of the Hollywood juggernaught will be enough for the movie to see the light of day. There’s simply too much money at stake.
Regardless of whether it comes out or not, Moore, however won’t be watching the Watchmen. “My book is a comic book,” he said to US magazine Entertainment Weekly. “Not a movie, not a novel. A comic book. It’s been made in a certain way, and designed to be read a certain way: in an armchair, nice and cozy next to a fire, with a steaming cup of coffee.”
Despite his much documented disdain for Hollywood (he is quoted in the LA Times saying that “It spoon-feeds us, which has the effect of watering down our collective cultural imagination. It is as if we are freshly hatched birds looking up with our mouths open waiting for Hollywood to feed us more regurgitated worms…”), sitting next to a crackling open fire with a mug of coffee doesn’t sound like too bad a way to enjoy the film when/if it comes out on DVD.
The Tales of the Black Freighter narrative has been filmed; it stars Gerard Butler (King Leonidas from 300) and is thought to be released on DVD independent of the supposedly eventual Watchmen DVD release. Under The Hood, the aforementioned autobiography, has also been filmed as a mockumentary, and is expected to be bundled on the same disc as Tales of the Black Freighter is. There are also rumours of a Lord of the Rings style ‘extended edition’ box set DVD which will include Tales edited back into the main feature as intended…
With the court case looming, all of this however is hearsay. It might never be released in this form, or any form at all. It still might. But is also might not. All we can do is sit and wait, and watch the minute hand of the clock slowly count its way to midnight.
