A very nice in-depth 5 page article in the new "Entertainment Weekly" examines the history, influence, and current film status of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons epic comic book masterpiece - "Watchmen". The article features interviews with both Gibbons and Moore as well as Joss Whedon, "Lost" producer Damon Lindelof, Neil Gaiman, and screenwriter Sam Hamm - who took the first shot at a movie script in the early 90s that was to be produced by Joel Silver and directed by Terry Gilliam. Over the years, the project has bounced around and at one point was being developed as a 10-part mini-series at HBO. The writer of that treatment, David Hayter (X-Men) has now pared the script down to a length that is manageable for a two-hour movie and the project is "in turnaround" at Paramount. Moore approves of Hayter's script but plans to avoid the movie. Says Moore: "My book is a comic book. Not a movie, not a novel. A comic book."

Pulling off WATCHMEN will be a miracle, especially at the shorter length. Hamm's comments about this in CFQ 15 years ago really pointed out the difficulties in communicating the major backstories without losing the general audience.

Plus my old choice for Rorsharch (Robert Davi) probably won't happen, since Silver is no longer involved.

2 hour movie? There is no way that it'll work. The 2 hour version of Dune is a good example of too much in too small a timeframe and "Serenity" shows just how narrow an audience is out there for movies that have a "backstory" and require some thinking from the audience.

BTW- I never thought "Watchmen" was all that great........

Prepares to be verbally assaulted by JohnP.....

It's okay, it's been a long time since I read it. I remember enjoying it, but I'm not an evangelist for it.

"Watchmen" blew me away when it was originally published and I have re-read it a number of times over the years. I agree that an adequate 2-hour treatment seems almost impossible - and have always thought the only way to do it correctly is as a television mini-series (too bad the HBO deal fell through). On top of that - not only do you have all the various backstories - but those backstories only work effectively if the reader/audience has at least a passing familiarity with the history of "The Golden Age" of superhero comics. Hopefully, they won't have to hand out program/thesauruses like they did with "Dune".


As far as casting, 15 years ago I would have cast Fred Ward as "The Comedian".