The Watchmen

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comics2film wrote:The Comics Continuum chatted up filmmaker David Hayter recently about his upcoming projects. Hayter commented on progress on Watchmen, a movie he's slated to write and direct based on Alan Moore's groundbreaking maxi-series.

"Watchmen is moving along now," Hayter told The Continuum. "We are developing the script and awaiting the green light."

That movie is set up at Universal.
that mini-series was fucking brilliant, way ahead of it's time. i wonder how true to Alan Moore this could possibly be...

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finally more watchmen news!
Comics2Film wrote:Hayter Completes Watchmen Script
X2 scribe may direct for producer Lloyd Levin.

July 14, 2003 - IGN FilmForce recently caught up with Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life producer, Lloyd Levin, again, but this time we asked him about his plans to bring a much anticipated comic book adaptation to the big screen: Alan Moore's Watchmen. And we're pleased to report that Watchmen is moving toward production and will be in front of the cameras, as Levin says, "The sooner the better."

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IGNFF: The League of Extraordinary Gentleman has just opened, and you're currently working on another big project based on work by Alan Moore, Watchmen. How carefully will you be watching what has been done with LXG in terms of adapting Alan Moore's work? Because the biggest decision with that film is that they dumbed-down a comic book to make a movie, and Watchmen is one of the seminal comic book works, ever.

LLOYD LEVIN: I think that with something like [Watchmen], if I've learned one thing, it's just to approach whatever you do with as much seriousness as possible and give it as much dignity as it deserves. So as soon as you start to dumb something down you're doing the opposite.

IGNFF: Terry Gilliam has been involved and he couldn't crack it because he wanted to do something like a 12-hour version. But now David Hayter is on board writing a new script. Is it completed?

LEVIN: We have a script. And we have a great adaptation by David Hayter that absolutely celebrates the book. It's a great adaptation of it. It's very faithful.

IGNFF: With the script completed, who are you thinking about for directing the film?

LEVIN: We're talking to David about directing the film.

IGNFF: Do you have a timeline that you'd like to go with? You know, a general idea as to when you'd start casting and, hopefully, principal photography.

LEVIN: I can't say right now, but hopefully, as a fan, the sooner the better.
don't know about you, but i'd love to see that gilliam version.....

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A Gilliam mini series would be fantastic and in my opinion the best way to do it. I have no idea how they want to bring this one in a 2-3 hour movie. With the League you were able to take the characters and put them into another non-graphic-novel related story, but that won't be possible with the Watchmen.

I hope it is staid true to the seriousness that is promised, I don't want another dumbed down summer "blockbuster" based on source material that deserves a lot more.
"Good taste is the death of art."
-Truman Capote

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My personal favorite Moore is "V for Vendetta," I just re-read that recently and think that, especially in light of recent world events, a movie adaption of that could not only be fucking great, but extremely controversial and even important.

Watchmen gets a director

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Probably not a bad choice...does he still have any Batman-type shit going on since Nolan's is in production? Anyway, from AICN:
AICN EXCLUSIVE!! WATCHMEN Has A Director!!
Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
I reviewed a draft of the Lloyd Levin/Larry Gordon production of WATCHMEN, based on the classic Alan Moore comic, back on October 21, 2002. Since then, there’s been at least one more draft of the script and the producers have been working tirelessly to try and set the film up with screenwriter David Hayter also serving as the film’s director.

As recently as the HELLBOY press junket last month, Levin and Gordon were still struggling to figure out how to get Hayter his chance in the director’s chair, but it looks like that effort has finally taken a back seat to the bigger effort of just getting the film made. I asked Hayter to comment about not directing the film, and here’s what he had to say:

It is definitely disappointing not to be able to direct the film, but we got into our second studio deal and it became increasingly clear that I was going to continue to have trouble getting the film made the way those of us who are fans know it must be made, until I gained more weight as a director.

That said, I have continued to impress upon the Producers that they must not just give this film to some, so-called "A-list" director just based on name alone. You may have heard who they are talking to at the moment, and I, for one, thought it was a pretty impressive idea. One I was genuinely excited about. Please feel free to announce with my enthusiastic endorsement.

Since those talks began, I have spoken with the Producers about a couple of different things I can do to both retain my involvement in the film, and to help ensure that the film retains its integrity. They have been very supportive of myself and this project for the past two years and continue to desire my creative support in terms of the script, the characters and the world. Please assure the fans that I will NEVER give up on creating a truly great Watchmen film that both honors and celebrates the Graphic Novel, and illustrates to the movie-going Audiences what a genuinely great comic-book story can do.

And on a personal note; If, God forbid, anything goes off-kilter with the currently proposed set-up and the Director's chair opens up again in say, a year, I will be first in line to try to regain my seat. Either way, I just hope the film is great.
Based on how great his adaptation was, I’m glad to hear that Hayter is still a key part of this creative team. Having said that, I will admit that when I heard who is directing the film, I just about did a backflip.

Darren Aronfosky.

As soon as he finished work on THE FOUNTAIN, which does indeed look to be back on track and in pre-production now, it looks like Aronofsky will be finally bringing Rorshach and Nite Owl and Dr. Manhattan and The Comedian and all the other amazing characters from this classic book to life. I think he might well turn out to be the exact right choice, and I’m pleased to see that the studio is taking a chance on a guy who hasn’t made a giant budget action film yet, but who has proven himself to be a striking visualist with a strong sense of material. He’s also a long-time comic fan who has tried to get projects like FRANK MILLER’S RONIN and BATMAN: YEAR ONE off the ground.
Here’s wishing everyone well as the project moves forward in the months ahead, and we’ll keep you posted about any new developments with it. In the meantime, I think Hayter’s got some more news we may be hearing about in the next few days...
"Moriarty" out.
"I'm like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. . . . I'm not a schemer. I just do things."

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the perfect, perfect choice. seriously, how can you watch Pi and not realize this guy is perfect for The Watchmen? i sure hope he gets to do Ronin at some point too.... another great one.

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From an attitude standpoint, yeah, there could be a fit...from a visual standpoint, I dunno, from my recollection of the Watchment (and it's been years and years, to be fair), it seems like he might be a bit frenetic for what might work for the story. But, you know, it's 50 times better than Joel Shumaker or some shit, so I'm not complaining or anything!
"I'm like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. . . . I'm not a schemer. I just do things."

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Yah, frenetic is certainly not an adjective to describe Watchmen. But I think Aranofsky is capable of giving it a fitting visual style. What I am sure of is that he is going to nail the characters. I would like to get a look at the screenplay though - I will miss so much from the novel.
"Good taste is the death of art."
-Truman Capote

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I've gotta think the script is out there somewhere, considering how long this thing has been in development. Although with a new director on board I'm sure you can expect some changes from whatever the most current draft is.
"I'm like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. . . . I'm not a schemer. I just do things."

Paul Greengrass--Watchmen interview

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from chud.com:
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: PAUL GREENGRASS, PART 1
03.15.05
By Devin Faraci

Paul Greengrass can talk.

The director of the smartest action film of last summer, The Bourne Supremacy (read my review right here) as well as Bloody Sunday, a devastating masterpiece about the massacre at a civil rights march in the Irish town of Derry in 1972 (a must see - buy it from CHUD.com here), Greengrass is now in England getting ready to make a movie many of us anticipate and fear in equal measure: Watchmen.

An adaptation of the seminal 1986 Alan Moore graphic novel (which you must own, and can buy from CHUD.com here!), Watchmen has been in the process of becoming a movie for almost as long as the book has been in print. At one point Terry Gilliam was set to helm it, with a truly horrendous script by Sam Hamm, the man who wrote the first Tim Burton Batman. Thankfully that project fell away, as did one a couple of years ago with Requiem for a Dream's Darren Aronofsky attached.

Now it's all in Greengrass' hands, and he knows the responsibility. Last week I was able to have a phoner with the director. Many phoners only last a few minutes, so I was going to use the tail end of a tape which had another interview on it to record the conversation, but at the last minute I opted for a fresh tape. Thank god - Paul Greengrass and I spoke for nearly an hour and a half.

Over the next couple of weeks we're going to bring you that conversation, which should set a lot of minds at ease. Paul Greengrass is serious about Watchmen, he's excited about Watchmen, and he loves to talk about Watchmen.

Q: You’re working on pre-production right now?

Greengrass: It’s gearing up now. It’s sort of about two months in now, about six weeks in.

Q: What are you working on at the moment? Costumes and sets?

Greengrass: It’s a bit like how do you fit fifteen people through a small door simultaneously. That’s what pre-production is like in the early stages. How do you it an American football team through a door that’s about two feet wide and three foot tall. You have to crew up first of all – not first of all, these are in no order of priorities, these are just the things you have to do. You have to start designing sets and wardrobe. You have to start really analyzing how you’re going to make the film. You have to start working on the screenplay. You have to start thinking about casting. You have to start thinking about budgets. We’ve made a good start.

It’s interesting the kind of issues that first raise their head, really. How do you deliver the Citizen Kane of comic books to screen? That is basically the problem. It’s a bit intimidating to be honest. I believe two things, really: I do believe, obviously because I am here, that you can make a film based on Watchmen the novel that is both truthful to the novel and also works in two hours. I really do believe that, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.

The second point is that I believe in an odd kind of way that it’s twenty years since Watchmen, give or take a year or two – certainly twenty years since it was set – and I think in many ways a lot of what Watchmen was about is very, very relevant to today.

I think that those are the two things that beat most passionately inside me.

Q: How did you first become aware of the novel, and how did you become involved with this project?

Greengrass: I was going to say that the interesting thing from my point of view – I got a call in November or December, not that long ago, saying had I heard of Watchmen and was I interested in doing a film. I said are you kidding, of course I had heard of Watchmen. But the interesting thing from my point of view is that I’m not a person steeped in comic book lore. That’s not where I come from. It wasn’t something that – I didn’t sit as a child and read millions and millions of comics.

I’m a Brit, as Alan Moore is, and Watchmen I read at the time that it came out. The reason I read it is because at the time there was a lot of pieces of work done in this period of the mid to late 80s that were, due to the state power, sort of dark and conspiratorial and reflecting the acute paranoia of the late Cold War. I was very involved in doing different sorts of work then, but one of the things I did at the time was a book called Spycatcher [available at Amazon.com here], which at that time caused a lot of stir because it got banned by the British government. It was a kind of book about spies and I actually wrote it with a guy who was inside our MI-5, which is like our version of the FBI sort of CIA type of thing. It was really an expose of what was going on. At the time that that came out, there was a kind of fantastic prolonged twelve month period where it was a court case and it became a great set piece encounter – conflict, really – trying to define where the boundaries lay between the government’s desire to protect national security and our right as citizens to know what is done in our name.

The whole Spycatcher affair became a great controversy over here. At the time there was a lot of work done that reflected that kind of paranoia. There was a lot of drama done, there were films done, Spycatcher – and Watchmen. They were often linked together in the press, the zeitgeist was paranoia. That’s really where I come to Watchmen. That is why I am convinced I can make the film, because I understood from personal experience the milieu that gave rise to Watchmen. I understood a lot of the references that Alan Moore used. He just happened to be expressing that paranoia in the medium of the graphic novel, the comic book, where I and others were working in different mediums. But we were all part of reflecting the same mood.

Q: So that means you’re not going to be shying away from the political edge.

Greengrass: No, not at all. I think it’s very, very important. One of the things that distinguishes Watchmen is that it’s about the way we live today. At that time it was about the way that we lived then. I think that we need to make a film of Watchmen that reflects the times we live in. What’s interesting to me is that Watchmen, when it came out, reflected late Cold War paranoia, and what was really interesting about it is that it was an incredibly bold kind of allusive, allegorical, dense, rich story that involved the collision of two elements: a real world running towards Armageddon – which is something at that time we thought was liable to happen, with the great arms race of the 1980s – so you have at the back of Watchmen this ticking clock, which is these footsteps to Armageddon, which is really a Cold War formulation. The Soviet Union invades Aghanistan –

Q: And they move the clock ahead one minute. The nuclear clock.

Greengrass: Exactly. And yoked together with that was this murder mystery involving generations of caped crusaders. It was the collision of those two elements that created the really great originality of Watchmen. What’s interesting today is that we live with new paranoias, but they are paranoias. We are once again in very paranoid times, in a way that we haven’t been I think – I’m talking about the post-9/11 world – we have been in levels of paranoia that we last experienced at the time of Watchmen.

Q: That’s interesting because at the end of the 90s Watchmen seemed like it might be a relic from another time. But like you said, 9/11 made it relevant again. But on the other hand many people have said that they think 9/11 makes the movie impossible to make because of the way the novel ends.

Greengrass: I don’t agree. I think it’s completely possible, and here’s the reason why: I think paranoia is driven by the circumstances of the world. In the mid to late 80s, particularly young people at that time, of which I was one, felt that the world was spiraling out of control. That there was going to be a sequence, a dance, a series of footsteps that were going to walk off over the edge into some cataclysmic event. The structures of the world were designed – were so intractable, were so locked in a sequence – that we couldn’t escape that. I think that today a lot of people feel the same thing.

Now it’s not going to be the Cold War prism. The world is no longer a bi-polar world divided between the USA and the USSR. We live in a unipolar world. But the dangers, the nuclear dangers today, are profound and very real. They’re to do with nuclear proliferation, the spread of these weapons. How do we deal with a world where these technologies spread? How do we keep the peace? That’s what drives us. We fear Al Qaeda, we fear terrorists, but I think underneath that is a much deeper fear. It’s a fear that, in a way, the bi-polar world offered us curiously some security, where now we feel that these weapons are spread, that creates challenges. How do we keep peace in a world where these technologies are spreading? That’s what I think we have to use Watchmen to address. I think it’s really important.

And I think that what it means is – and we’re engaged in a debate at the moment in this production on how to do it – you have to take the chronology of Watchmen, and by chronology I mean what I call the “footsteps to Armageddon” part of the machinery of Watchmen. You’ve got these two pieces of machinery, the first of which is the murder mystery with the caped crusaders and the various generations thereof, and the other is the footsteps of Armageddon. What you have to do is take that chronology as it’s given to us in Watchmen and try to update it. You don’t replace it, you just say “What would have happened if that chronology continued?” One of the most exciting things that I remember distinctly when I read Watchmen when it came out was this idea of a world that was our world but that had taken a slightly different course. Nixon had served three or four terms. Woodward and Bernstein had been assassinated. G Gordon Liddy had become the trusted advisor to the president. It was a kind of world turned on its head. What we have to do is imagine what would have happened to that Watchmen world if it had continued, rather than say let’s start with a new paradigm. It’s about building on what’s there in the spirit of the novel. That’s what we’re going to try to achieve. So you feel that it’s addressing our world, but you’re not losing the world Watchmen gave us. Which is the Nixon four terms world.

Q: Concretely speaking, is Nixon going to be president in this? Or would it be Bush Sr still in charge?

Greengrass: I think you can’t assume that Nixon would have served twelve terms! You need to push it beyond there. We’re not at the stage yet of having decided that, but the methodology is clear. You’ve got to build on that scenario and develop it. One of the interesting things about the projects is reading the threads online. Seeing what the Watchmen community feel and revere. What’s important to them.

Q: You just launched a message board on the Watchmen site, right? [Check out those boards here]

Greengrass: Absolutely. Last night, I think.

Q: The Watchmen fans can be very vocal. Are you going to pay attention to what they’re saying or do you have to ignore them to follow your own vision?

Greengrass: It’s very important to listen, hence this being a very important dialogue to begin with. The reason for that is this: We’re trying to make a film. It’s got to carry a broad audience. It’s got to take Watchmen in a sense back into the world again. But we have to carry with us the Watchmen community that has loved and found depth and to whom Watchmen has spoken for all these years. When you make any movie you have to ask yourself hard questions, because you’re going to be eating, eating, breathing, living and sleeping the thing for the best part of two years. You have to ask yourself some hard questions about what’s bringing you to the project, what you can give, in a sense. One of the things I said very early on to Larry and Lloyd, who are producing, is that trying to carry the Watchmen community is very like problems I faced in a very different area in various films that I have made. In particular I made a number of films in Ireland, about the troubles. One called Bloody Sunday and one that I wrote and produced but didn’t direct – Pete Travis directed, very wonderfully – Omagh, which was the terrible bomb that killed many, many people in the small community in Omagh.

In both those films - in many ways I made them as bookends to a 30 year conflict that, prior to 9/11, was probably the most important thing if you were either British or Irish; it was central to your experience of the last thirty years. Bloody Sunday was an event that really propelled the North of Ireland into conflict. Omagh, thirty years later, really marked the moment when the conflict became untenable. I wanted those two films to bookend this tremendous tragedy. Both of them involved different communities in Northern Ireland. One, the city of Derry for Bloody Sunday and the city of Omagh. In both those films, terrible tragedies had engulfed those communities. Different tragedies – in Bloody Sunday the shooting of innocent people by the British Army and in Omagh the killing of innocent people by a Republican breakaway group. In both those films the communities felt that they understood the story; they had a vested interest, they had a huge interest in the making of the film.

Q: You actually had some survivors and witnesses of Bloody Sunday in that film, right?

Greengrass: Correct. And for me it was central to making those films. Absolutely central that as a filmmaker and as a production we built bridges to the people who felt they owned that story. In the telling of it we sought to carry them. That’s not to say that the films that I produced reflected every jot and comma and nuance as they saw it. You’re making a film and you’ve got to speak to an audience beyond. But I always saw it as absolutely critical to both those films, the success of both those films, the integrity of both those films that we carried the communities that had lived through those events. It was profoundly at the heart of everything I did. I can’t speak to the quality of those two films, it’s for others to judge, but one thing I do believe is that those communities felt that those films reflected their struggle, reflected their understanding of what had happened. And they felt they owned them. Yet in a way those films also spoke to them and showed them new ways of looking at these terrible events.

In a funny way when I looked at making a film of Watchmen, I felt that the problem was analogous. Here you have a community – a much bigger community – who feel they have a stake, in a sense, in this film before you even start. Because of the love they have for the graphic novel, for the fact that they feel very strongly, I suspect, about the integrity and authenticity in the making of this. I think it’s absolutely part of our purpose that we strive very, very hard to carry that community with us on our journey. You begin that by entering into dialogue with that community. By trying to understand what Watchmen means to them. What it meant to them when it came out, what it means to them today. To understand what they may feel are the opportunities for the film and conversely what are the pitfalls for the film. You have to listen, you have to understand, you have to engage in dialogue.

Of course in making a film you have to go on your own journey. You have to expect judgement. But at the heart of this process is going to be that dialogue. Will we succeed? I don’t know. It’s a journey. We’re at the very early stages. But what I want to convey is the seriousness of my purpose in listening to people and engaging in dialogue, explaining how we’re trying to move forward.

Central to that is for me to explain to that community, “Hey, you know what? I don’t come to Watchmen in the way that maybe many of you do – from a lifetime of studying comic books and graphic novels. But I do come to it having been involved in the zeitgeist that gave rise to Watchmen in my way. I was doing my pieces at the time Alan Moore was doing his. I understand the world very well, from a personal point of view, that gave rise to Watchmen.” That’s really important to me, because that’s what gives me the confidence to take on this tricky and bold assignment.

Q: Are you going to be interacting with fans on the Watchmen message boards? You’ll sign up and post?

Greengrass: Absolutely. I can’t tell you when, but I definitely over the next few days make sure I make contact, and make sure I say to people that I want to find ways of having dialogue. I want to come to events and meet people. We have had a number of meeting on this film from the word go – and I mean from the word go. Paramount and Larry Gordon and Lloyd Levin, who have been producing this picture, have been absolutely fantastic about nurturing, supporting, filling with enthusiasm this concept. This is how we’re going to build this film, with dialogue at the heart. We may not always agree – you have to go on your own journey as a filmmaker, but you have to try and carry people. The first stage is to try and understand. I have to find forums where I can hear what people expect, fear and hope for, and where I can explain what I’m trying to do and the solutions I’m trying to get.

And hopefully it lives beyond the film, where that community can have the experience together with the film. And one day the film becomes just part of the Watchmen journey. It’s one of those texts, those iconic texts. It’s going to live for a very long time.

Monday: Part 2, where we discuss how you make a movie featuring a 100 foot tall naked blue man as a lead.
"I'm like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. . . . I'm not a schemer. I just do things."

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excellent, excellent interview. thank you very much. keep the next parts coming! man i can't wait for this. guess i'll have to get into some boxen & dig out all my watchmen stuff - t-shirt, pin set, posters, books....

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Oh fuck, that sounds like they are going to stage it in the present. That is what I feared most. :(
"Good taste is the death of art."
-Truman Capote

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And it's canceled (for now). :(
Plug Pulled On Watchmen Movie

Paramount has pulled the plug on its proposed film version of Watchmen, Alan Moore's celebrated superhero graphic novel, Variety reported. Producers Larry Gordon and Lloyd Levin were taking the project, with British director Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Supremacy) attached, out to other studios, the trade paper reported.

Watchmen came under heavy scrutiny in the wake of Paramount chief Brad Grey's surprise move to replace Donald De Line with Gail Berman as studio president in late March, the trade paper reported. De Line found out about the change while in London meeting with Greengrass about Watchmen and the need to cut its budget, rumored to be $100 million, the trade paper reported.

Paramount had been aiming for a summer start, but began releasing crews working on preproduction at that point.
"Good taste is the death of art."
-Truman Capote

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Aint It Cool indicated it was in trouble about a month ago...that sucks.
"I'm like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. . . . I'm not a schemer. I just do things."

Watchmen

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UPDATED!! AICN EXCLUSIVE!! WATCHMEN Has A New Director... Again!!
Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
Although I can’t publish my full detailed report until May, I had a very interesting visit this week to the editing room of the new Warner Bros. film 300, directed by Zack Snyder. I walked into the encounter thinking he was a talented guy who had made a pretty good first film. I left the encounter convinced that Snyder is one of the best-kept secrets in Hollywood right now, a visionary with a wicked eye and a real feel for how to bring fantastic material to the bigscreen.
While I was there, I noticed a copy of the WATCHMEN graphic novel sitting on the desk of his office, and in our conversations about Frank Miller and his newfound luck in film translations of his work, the subject of Alan Moore came up. Snyder mentioned that he was about to meet with the producers of WATCHMEN to discuss whether or not he would come aboard to direct the long-in-development film.
I’ve been able to confirm now that Snyder has entered negotiations with Warner Bros. to helm the project, which is fantastic news. I know that all you guys have seen so far is DAWN OF THE DEAD, so that’s all you can judge him on, but trust me... 300 is a whole different ball game. When you get a load of what this guy is capable of... when you see how far he pushes things with bringing Frank Miller’s world to life... you’ll be just as excited as I am. I’ve always said that WATCHMEN had the right producers and writer attached, and I think there have been some interesting directors (Aronofsky and Greengrass) attached to it in the last few years. But with Snyder, I think the WATCHMEN may have finally found the perfect guy for the job, and I am absolutely rabid to see what he’s going to do.
And speaking of that script... I’ve heard there are some revisions underway to really fine-tune the various Hayter drafts and make sure that what ends up onscreen is the most perfect realization of Moore’s book possible. I’m hoping I can work something out where I can track down the new writer and talk with him about the work he’s doing, because I know how important this book is to so many of you. Zack Snyder said the same thing about it to me, talking about the responsibility of bringing something like WATCHMEN to life. “If I screw up 300, that would be heartbreaking, but ultimately, it’s not as well known a property. If you get WATCHMEN wrong... well...”
He didn’t have to finish the sentence, and he doesn’t have to worry. I have utmost faith that he’s going to knock it out of the park. I’m as sure of that as I am of the fact that when the trades finally report Snyder has signed as director, they won’t mention that the story broke here first. Take that to the bank.
"I'm like a dog chasing cars, I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. . . . I'm not a schemer. I just do things."

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AICN EXCLUSIVE!!
Good God, I'd forgotten that website was still around.
This is a snakeskin jacket. And for me it's a symbol of my individuality and my belief in personal freedom.