
The
Vertigo
arm of
DC Comics produces some truly
stellar titles, perhaps none greater among them than
Watchmen. Fans were of course quite excited when Paramount announced their Watchmen project, and continued to grow
ever more excited as forthcoming news was nothing but good: work had been done
on costume and set design, Paul
Greengrass had a filming schedule set, and David Hayter's screenplay had
met with very positive reviews. Fans were equally devastated when, earlier this
year, Paramount threw a hissy fit over the film’s expenses and kicked the
sucker to the curb without so much as a by your leave.
Well, today, the emotional roller coaster ride for Vertigo
fans takes another wild jump, as Entertainment Weekly reports
that the good folks at Warner Brothers
are now in talks to bring the project into their fold. Hey, this is the company
that brought us Batman Begins, right? But of course, it is also the
company that brought us Catwoman.
I’m excited about this, for very obvious reasons. Watchmen is a stellar title, and comic
book fans of all variety should be thrilled to see it on the big screen. I’m
also admittedly apprehensive, however, because of the most recent attempt to bring an Alan Moore
project into theatres. Let’s be honest, LXG wasn’t really anything
like the comic book, and even if it had a few fleeting moments of mindless action
fun, it wasn’t what any of us wanted when we first heard the news of the Gentlemen movie. Can a Watchmen flick be more faithful to the
pages, or will it too disappoint?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-30-2005 @ 10:17PM
jer said...
There is no way this film could ever, ever, be anywhere near as good as the source. Why bother then?
We already have plenty of sub-par comic book movies (which honestly, is pretty much all of them), so leaving this unrealized is really the best thing to do.
My favorite rationale for not doing this? Terry frickin' Gilliam thinks this story is "unfilmable". When Gilliam says to you "Man, that'd be a nightmare to shoot," you probably better listen. He knows a thing or two about messy shoots.
Also, don't forget Constantine and From Hell, both movies that I enjoyed very much, but that depart radically from the source material in ways that don't necessarily improve them.
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11-08-2005 @ 12:50PM
Mike said...
This article is horrible. First off Watchmen is not a Vertigo title. Watchmen (1986) precedes the creation of the Vertigo line (1993) by several years.
And I don't know who these fans he's talking about are but the comments from the fans I've seen were thrilled when the project was cancelled. I had NOT heard of comic fandom rejoicing in the news that it back on and Hollywood is about to butcher another comic book by making a movie version. Let's fact it, movies do a horrible job of adapting comics. Half the time in the movies the good guy are corny. In the comic the villian are psychotic, in the movies they are comedic. It tough to even name a comicbook movie where the bad guy even seemed dangerous. With the exception of Sin City, which wasn't made in Hollywood btw, movies don't stay faithful to the source material at all. There is no way on God's green earth that they could make a movie of Watchmen that would do it any justice. Your average comic book movie is dumbed down for movie audience consumption. To take one of the most complex and detailed stories ever seen in comics and reduce it to a 2-3 hour movie would be a crime against man and nature. At least 3/4 of the story would be lost and being that you'd have to introduce all the main characters to the unfamilar movie audience if any attempt was made to give some insight into those characters past you wouldn't have time to tell any story. Movies don't even do that normally. Dr Manhatten's and Rorschach's histories are almost maditory to give any real insight to those characters and the story overall. It would be hard to make any of the other character very interesting if you left out there history too. Watchmen is way too complex a story for movie audiences. Although there is some action it is very character driven. Not enough explosions and car chases for Hollywood. There is litte you can cut out without hurting the overall story, except the pirate story which could be made into a full length movie on its own. A 5 day 2 hour per episode mini-series, maybe, A two hour movie would just be a hatchet job. Even Alan Moore the writer of Watchmen, doesn't support movies based off of his work. He himself said Watchmen was unfilmable. He demanded a public apology from the producers of "V for Vendetta", another of his works, for claiming he supported the project. And even blasted the script. See http://www.alanmoorefansite.com/news/may2005.html
From Hell the movie was vastly inferior to the comic,It was clear from the previews that LXG would be nothing like the graphic novel.
Just say no to a Watchmen movie.
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