Zack Snyder Talks About WATCHMEN And More Posters
Following on from the debut of the first full theatrical trailer for Watchmen, Zack Snyder, alongside others including original Watchmen illustrator Dave Gibbons, were in London today to screen almost 30 minutes of footage from the movie to some very lucky people. I, unfortunately, wasn’t one of them but luckily Empire were and have written up a little report about it. Now, I’ll warn you right here and now - if you haven’t read the comic yet then you might want to stop reading at this point as otherwise I’m going to end up spoiling it for you!
Still here? Fair enough.
Most importantly from the Q&A session is the final word on the ending of the movie. Yes, those early test screening reports were correct - it’s been changed! So of course, someone asked him why he changed the ending from the squid-calamity in the comic:
“Well, I had a horrible calamari incident as a child.”
Haha. All joking aside, he went on to say:
“I have nothing against it. But the squid represents something that would have had to have been illuminated through extra story. We would have had to sacrifice character to story and character is more important to me.”
Fair enough, I can deal with that. Especially when you add to it comments from Dave Gibbons, who said that what they have come up with is true to “the tone, the moral ambiguity of the book”.
Oh, also Gibbons corrected people who kept on referring to the squid by saying:
“It’s not a squid; it’s a fifth-dimensional cephalopod”
Also, they discussed the running time of the movie, which currently stands at a little over two and a half hours (which is unlikely to change much) and the DVD Directors Cut is going to clock in at around three hours. And if they do cut in the Black Freighter “story within a story” content, the whole thing will come to around three and a half hours.
Snyder also mentioned the “Under The Hood” documentary which has been filmed by Eric Matthews as a “mock documentary” filmed in the style of a TV show from 1985 covering a book written in 1972 on the original Minutemen from the 1940’s! Yet another thing that I can’t wait to see!
And he also commented on why he decided to take the job of filming something that people had long thought was unfilmable:
“They offered it to me on the phone, and they were talking about setting it in the present day and changing the ending. I thought, well, if I don’t do this, someone else will, and they’ll mess it up and it’ll be my fault. So I might as well do it and try to do it right, and if I mess it up it’ll still be my fault but at least it’ll be my fault on purpose.”
Sounds like he’s ready to take it on the chin if this ends up being a failure then. Personally, I don’t think it will be. I mean, ok, so they’ve changed the ending away from the other worldly threat in the comic which was meant to unite mankind, but according to Dave Gibbons they’ve come up with something that will work just as well in the context of the movie, so I don’t see that as a deal breaker. I am still holding out hope that Zack Snyder delivers on all the promise that has been shown so far with the behind the scenes videos, trailers and everything else we have seen.
And while we’re on the subject of Watchmen there are six gorgeous character posters available on the net this week. Below you can see the Rorschach one and by clicking here you can see the rest.
March 2009 cannot come soon enough.
[Via EmpireOnline and SuperHeroHype]
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- Hi-Res WATCHMEN Comic Con Posters And Some Of “That” Footage
- Zack Snyder Introduces WATCHMEN!
- Newsround - WATCHMEN Edition
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One Response to “Zack Snyder Talks About WATCHMEN And More Posters”
the one that has the comedian falling from the bulding with the smily face badge rapes this one
even though rorschach is my fave watchmen
does this poster remind anyone else of the spirit??
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