'Watchmen': An Exclusive First Look

In his bungalow on the Warner Bros. lot, Zack Snyder keeps a suitcase large enough to hold a rocket launcher. It doesn't. Popping open the lid reveals a set of finely crafted action figures encased in black foam: Dr. Manhattan. Rorschach. Ozymandias. Nite Owl. Silk Spectre. The Comedian. They're based on comic-book superheroes that aren't exactly household names, but if the director of the sword-and-sandals smash 300 has his way, these characters will become icons as explosive as any state-of-the-art weapon. ''In my movie, Superman doesn't care about humanity, Batman can't get it up, and the bad guy wants world peace,'' Snyder says with a smirk. ''Will Watchmen be the end of superhero movies? Probably not. But it sure will kick them in the gut.''

Watchmen won't hit theaters till March 6, 2009, but Snyder and his cast are about to face a trial by fire: On July 25, they're screening special teaser footage for thousands in San Diego at the annual summit of cult pop, Comic-Con. The movie is no kid-safe funny-book flick. It's an R-rated, $100 million adaptation of the smartest, most subversive superhero story ever created. Published by DC Comics in 1986 and routinely hailed by even mainstream critics as a literary masterpiece, Watchmen is many things — a jittery expression of Cold War anxiety, a chilling meditation on human nature, an intricate murder mystery. But at its heart this sexy, violent, and politically charged 12-issue saga, written by Alan Moore (click to see our Q&A with him) and drawn by Dave Gibbons, is an epic love letter to colorfully clad superpeople and a wicked satire about them. Set in 1985, but in an alternate reality where Richard Nixon is serving his fifth term as president and costumed crime-fighting has been outlawed, the story begins with the brutal murder of a retired superhero named the Comedian. Another ex-superhero, the inkblot-masked Rorschach, believes that someone is trying to assassinate his former colleagues. Is it a serial killer at work, or is there a global conspiracy involved? A twisty plot unfolds, enveloping an array of bizarre, damaged, and bracingly human fantasy people. ''We wanted to explore simple questions with not-so-simple answers,'' Gibbons says. ''What if superheroes really existed? How would they really think? And how would they really affect the world?''

The result was a piercing deconstruction of superhero mythology told with a sophistication unprecedented for the genre. ''At the time, comic books had hit the ceiling,'' Snyder says. ''Superman had done everything he could do; the X-Men and Fantastic Four had faced every possible bad guy and end-of-the-world scenario. And then Watchmen came along and took it to the next level by breaking all the rules.'' Snyder — who was into naughty sci-fi/fantasy comics like Heavy Metal magazine as a teen and discovered Watchmen during college — believes the global multiplex is now ripe for a similar revolution. ''The average movie audience has seen so many superhero movies,'' he says. ''And some of this stuff is hard to take seriously. I mean, The Hulk? Come on.'' Snyder remembers screening some Watchmen footage for an unnamed studio executive. Afterward, Snyder says, the exec turned to him and said, ''This makes Superman look stupid.''

Superhero movies have taken a serious turn lately, with The Dark Knight and Hancock. Still, the odds of Snyder making a fantastic, faithful adaptation of Watchmen are against him. Until recently, the director belonged to a school of thought that believed this dense, dark jewel — the fanboy's Catcher in the Rye, the rite-of-passage text for any serious geek — couldn't and maybe shouldn't be made into a movie. That school still includes Watchmen creator Moore, who has disavowed the film because of his general disdain for Hollywood, and his long-standing conflicts with DC Comics, a Warner Bros. sister company. ''Watchmen works perfectly fine as a comic,'' says the British scribe, who has scrubbed his name from the film's credits and abdicated his royalty check to Gibbons. ''There are things we did that could only work in a comic, and were indeed designed to show off the things that comics can do that other media can't.''

So far, no other media have. Many in Hollywood have tried to get Watchmen on the screen and failed, including directors Terry Gilliam (Brazil), Darren Aronofsky (The Fountain), and, most recently, Bourne Supremacy director Paul Greengrass. In 2005, Greengrass was deep into preproduction on a present-day, war-on-terror-themed adaptation by David Hayter (X-Men), when a regime change at Paramount Pictures led to its demise. Enter Warner Bros., which acquired the rights in late 2005. Snyder was working on 300 for the studio at the time, and he was alarmed when he heard about the deal. After some soul-searching, his fear of seeing a bad Watchmen movie trumped his fear of trying to make a great one. ''They were going to do it anyway,'' he says. ''And that made me nervous.'' Over many months, and many meetings, Snyder persuaded Warner Bros. to abandon the Greengrass/Hayter script and hew as faithfully as possible to the comic. The key battles: retaining the '80s milieu, keeping Richard Nixon (Moore did consider using an era-appropriate Ronald Reagan, but worried it would alienate American readers), and preserving the villain-doesn't-pay-for-his-crimes climax. ''It was clear that Zack felt an intense obligation to the fans and the book,'' says Warner Bros. Picture Group president Jeff Robinov. ''There was definitely a conversation about the best way to make it contemporary and relevant to today. Zack felt the best way was to go back to the roots of the novel.'' It didn't hurt Snyder's case that by then 300 — another R-rated movie based on a hardcore graphic novel — was making a killing at the box office. ''Little by little, we got the studio on board,'' says Deborah Snyder, the director's producer, chief collaborator, and wife. ''300 really helped. It created a level of trust in Zack's vision.''

That trust extended to casting. Daniel Craig, Jude Law, and Sigourney Weaver were said to be interested in or attached to the Greengrass production, but Snyder felt celebrity would detract from Watchmen's substance. There's barely a brand-name star among his cast, and none were Watchmen fans when they were hired. Patrick Wilson (Angels in America) came aboard first and immediately started packing on weight to play the potbellied, middle-aged Nite Owl. Oscar nominee Jackie Earle Haley (Little Children) campaigned for the role of Rorschach — the comic's most popular character, despite his sociopathic, sadistic vigilantism — by recruiting 14 friends to help produce a video of himself performing sequences from the comic book. ''It was a little labor of love, man,'' he says. ''Kind of cheesy, but for an audition piece, it sufficed.''

When the six-month shoot commenced in Vancouver last summer, some of the actors struggled with fleshing out their complex, often corrupt characters. Jeffrey Dean Morgan (TV's Supernatural), who plays the Comedian, must carry out repellent acts of violence, but still manage to make the audience care about his death — and his big secrets. ''Some of the things this guy does, you can't make excuses for, even as an actor,'' Morgan says. ''Your instinct is to just play the guy as a bastard, but you can't.'' For Billy Crudup (Jesus' Son), the challenges were both physical and mental. His CG-rendered Dr. Manhattan is bald, blue, and often buck naked. Not only did he have to play an omniscient embodiment of quantum physics, but he had to do it wearing a white motion-capture suit blinged with tiny blue lights, his face covered with 140 black dots. ''It's really hard to feel like the master of all matter when the other actor can do little more than laugh in your face,'' Crudup says. ''I had to constantly reference the picture of the character, because if I caught the slightest glimpse of myself in any reflective surface, the illusion was crushed.''

Based on footage Snyder screened for EW, at least, the work seems to have been worth it. Multiple scenes — the Comedian's murder, Rorschach's introduction, Dr. Manhattan's origin, and a hypnotic title sequence that shutter-flies through the history of Watchmen America, set to Bob Dylan's ''The Times They Are A-Changin''' — suggest a film that may capture more of Watchmen than anyone thought possible. Sure, there have been changes. The catastrophic climax is different. Provocative bits, like a timely subplot about alternative fuels, have been added. And a pirate/horror comic book that was threaded ironically throughout the Moore/Gibbons narrative is set to become a separate animated DVD. But Snyder's film clearly seeks to emulate the comic's arch-yet-dramatic tenor, its time-shifting, perspective-switching storytelling, and its richly realized alterna-New York. The Gunga Diner, the ''Who Watches the Watchmen?'' graffiti, the blood-splashed smiley-face button evoking a doomsday clock — it's all there.

Now comes the hard part: keeping it there. Snyder's current three-hour cut won't be unspooling in theaters next March. Robinov says two hours and 25 minutes is more realistic. ''Running time is dictated by how you are engaged,'' Robinov says. The studio might be gutsy enough to back Watchmen, but it wants to make a profit too. ''The challenge is to make a movie that can satisfy the fan but engage the typical moviegoer,'' he says. ''I think that's how Zack feels too.''

He does, but it won't be easy. ''I keep telling them, 'Guys, I can't take this out!''' Snyder says. '''Don't you understand?! If I f--- this up, I might as well start making romantic comedies!''' On July 18, Watchmen first trailer's hits theaters, hooked to The Dark Knight. Snyder hopes the fanboys understand that even with these changes, no other version of the film that preceded him dared to be this faithful. And as he spends the next eight months slicing and fine-tuning, he prays his fellow Watchmenphiles will cut him a little slack. ''They have a chance to support something that I think legitimizes the superhero-movie genre for everyone who says superhero movies are stupid, popcorn bulls---,'' he says. ''Hopefully, Watchmen can get in their faces and change their minds.''

Trailer

There are two comic books, published about a year apart from each other about 20 years ago, which together destroyed, rebuilt, and then breathed new life into the comic book genre. One was the Dark Knight Returns, and the other was Watchmen. It took 20 years for Hollywood to catch up, but in the span of one year we finally had a Dark Knight film, and will have the Watchmen next spring.

For all of those who watched the latest Batman film and thought it was too dark, too morally ambiguous, to adult, it will not get any better with Watchmen. But if they stay true to the source material, they will have a deeply thought provoking and emotionally gripping film.

While most Batman fans have wanted to see Dark Knight up on a screen, Watchmen fans have always been divided about that. One the one hand, it is a powerful story, and it would be nice to see what a filmmaker can do with it. But on the other hand, Watchmen was deliberately written to stretch the boundries of the comic medium, and it was wildly successful at that. This makes many fans doubt a film could do it justice. It is more of a multimedia experience than a linear film, more reflection, backstory, and character development than a plot in the present tense. Movie watchers may find it boring that with seven main superheroes, there is very little fights or action, except mostly in the past. But judging from the trailer, it looks like they are giving it their best effort to be faithful to the story.

I must admit, since I was about 14, I’ve never understood the fascination with comic books—2nd rate sensationalistic art, with sissy costumed (but always perfectly sculpted) bodies—bearing no relation to real life circumstances. Lord of the Rings bears a closer relationship to life on earth than a typical comic book. I can’t say I’m looking forward to what has to be a twisted tale where “the bad guy wants world peace,” either. May be brilliant, but likely Kafka-esque nihilism too.

My lack of fascination is a lot like my attitude toward Mad Magazine—I used to think it was hilarious, now it just seems dumb.

To me the current crop of comic-movies is just a way the movie studios can guarantee their mega-millions investment in a film will have an audience—and a built-in-chance for using cool special effects. It sure ain’t about the plot or the acting!

I must admit, since I was about 14, I’ve never understood the fascination with comic books—2nd rate sensationalistic art, with sissy costumed (but always perfectly sculpted) bodies—bearing no relation to real life circumstances.

While my comic book/graphic novel days are also behind me, I remember "Watchmen" fondly - good writing is good writing, whether printed on plain white paper and sniffed at solely by NYTimes book snobs, or printed on vividly illustrated and colored pages and avidly read by boys and young men.

If you've passed up writing by Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, et al simply because you feel "comic books" are beneath you, you're short-changing yourself.

For those who haven’t read the book, here are some of the things you’ll see in WATCHMEN:

• The US winning the Vietnam War
• A quasi-Objectvist hero who views the universe in black and white terms
• A once-human being with the power of a god
• A world in which Indian food takes the place held in our world by McDonald’s
• Passenger airships
• A chubby Jewish guy who dresses up like an owl and fights crime using Batman-like gadgetry
• Several really good-looking girls
• A woman pleading the case of the human race while on the surface of Mars
• An American secret operative who makes Bond look like a schoolgirl
• Heroes battling cops, Commies, and one another
• Walking on water
• Giant, genetically-engineered lynx
• Heat-sensitive dye sandwiched between two layers of latex
• A prison riot and jailbreak
• The USSR invading Pakistan
• President Nixon, in his fifth term

And a lot more.

If this movie actually follows the comic book it will be nothing but one long sustained lament about how evil everything in America is and how the west is the worst thing that ever happened to the world.

For those who do not know, the writer of this junk is a socialist and used his book to push anti-western, and utter nihilistic themes.

If you want a long essay about how bad this comic book is go read:

Who Watches The Watchers?

If you are a conservative, you will find the Watchmen to be utter garbage. If you are a leftist, you will love how it makes Nixon, Reagan and the west the bad guys.

Thanks, during The Dark Knight (trailer) this movie seemed to me like there was somthing (demonic) with it! I will stay away. TDK at least acknowledges moral objectivism (and doesn’t try to cloud the good v. evil. Though Batman works outside the law he is clearly on the side of Gotham and humanity! I applaud Nolan for putting in the (intentional or not) WoT and Pro-Bush allegories! ;).

I’m a conservative, and I also love Watchmen. Just re-read it recently, as a matter of fact (I’ve got the hardcover edition).
I can’t agree with your take on the story- it looks to me more like a society where liberalism won (Nixon was no conservative, btw). The solution Ozymandias engineers is hugely drastic, but it’s still quite a story.
I’m definitely looking forward to this movie.

My guess is you just read the book and did no other investigation on the writer or his agenda.

When the books originally came out I was very excited and stayed interested all the way until the silly ending. Then I was disappointed. But, since those days in 1986, I studied what it was that writer Moore was trying to say and if you really are a conservative, you must find yourself against that agenda.

Moore’s purpose was to cut down America, lampoon Ronald Reagan, and say that Western culture is evil. And if you have no problem with THAT, then you might want to reconsider if you are a conservative.

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