New Watchmen Stills Up
Warner Brothers has posted stills featuring some of the main characters from the upcoming Watchmen film. They look quite faithful to the designs in the comic, aside from the DARK, DARK, DARK coating applied to virtually every comic book movie costume and set since Batman.It's a nice look, but the book's a riff on old silver age characters, so I don't think it's as appropriate here. I don't know if you need fully saturated colors on spandex, but I think the once-innocent/fallen from grace contrast is integral to the concept.
To be honest, though, production design is the least of the challenges. Watchmen is a really dense, multi-layered story. While I don't think any story is unfilmable, this is certainly a ambitious assignment for a movie.
I was talking with a friend of mine today, and I'm wondering if a television mini-series might have been the way to go. You could go into more detail with six hours (or more) than you can with two. How's this for geeky? A TV mini-series. Twelve one-hour episodes, one a week, the final one airs at 11:00 PM - midnight. I'd buy that for a dollar!
Labels: alan moore, comic, comic book, comics to film, dave gibbons, graphic novel, warner brothers, watchmen, zack snyder
posted by Jeff Pidgeon at
11:34 PM
6 Comments:
I agree with you on the mini series idea. If serialization can work for Heroes it can work for Watchmen. Zack Snyder has a definite challenge on his hands, I can't see Watchmen working all that well in a two hour time period or three for that matter plus there are very few heavy action sequences in Watchmen that can support the current emphasis on such things in most comic to film adaptations.
Sure! Serialization is what superheroes are all about!
Also, Watchmen's a very dark story - especially the ending. It'll be interesting to see how much is changed in terms of tone.
I think the mini series is a very good idea. But it would have to be somehow, a really big budget.
I really want Watchmen to be good, I truly want it. But I honestly don't think Zack -I'll do the visuals as close as the comicbook and as sexy as possible, and whatever happens to the story doesn't really matter. Trust me, it worked great on 300.- Snyder can pull it.
Even the great wizard of Northampton (Alan Moore) talked Terry Gilliam out of doing it. Saying it's really an unmakable film. Mostly because it was made in such a way that it would use the comicbook medium at it most, doing things that can only be fully achieved in comics.
After seeing what happened with The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, I have to admit that my hopes are not very high for The Watchmen.
There are subtleties and variances in the story that just can't be captured in six hours, let alone two.
Finding the budget - in the US, at least - for this sort of thing is pretty rare. Yes, Tim Man got made, but it could have been so much better.
I still have to send you a DVD of Tae Wang Sa Shin Gi. I picked up a terrifically horrible Engrish notebook for you and Ninja Bandages for Anita. I'll be in town next weekend - hope to see you, though I know with Anita's recovery it might be difficult.
it's really an unmakable film. Mostly because it was made in such a way that it would use the comicbook medium at it most, doing things that can only be fully achieved in comics.
It'd be interesting to try and figure out what the cinematic equivalents might be, but yeah, that pretty much sums it up.
I was trying to think of a director who might be able to make it work (though I was excited when Gilliam was considering it). Steven Soderberg came to mind, mainly because he experiments with storytelling a lot. I don't know if he'd be up for that sort of thing, though.
I picked up a terrifically horrible Engrish notebook for you and Ninja Bandages for Anita. I'll be in town next weekend - hope to see you, though I know with Anita's recovery it might be difficult.
Thanks for the cool gifts! Anita will be here, but I'll probably be at Wizard World that weekend. Where will you be "in town"? She'd love a visit if you could manage one.
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