Category: Watchmen

Inkblot Tests.

“Whatever happened to the American Dream? It came true — you’re looking at it.” Quite a bit of new Watchmen material today. AICN get their hands on high-rez versions of the spiffy painted Comicon posters. (Rorschach | The Comedian | Silk Spectre I | Silk Spectre II | Nite-Owl | Dr. Manhattan | Ozymandias.) Very nicely done — Lots of continuity nods thrown in for the fans, and note the clocks in the top-left corner. Plus, this is the first image of Ozy that I’ve liked so far. (Bubastis helps.) And Empire Online has a few new stills to share, although they’ve logo-stamped them in rather irritating fashion (and the characters look a bit stiff.)

Filmware Upgrades.

The place to be right now, other than Berlin? San Diego, where the 2008 Comic-Con is now under way. There are lots of pictures of the floor here and here — Note the full-scale version of NIte-Owl’s ship (Archimedes) from Zack Snyder’s Watchmen.

One of the first stories down the pike: Strangely enough, the recent rumors are true: Darren Aronofsky is signed for a Robocop sequel. I’d buy that for a dollar…But, don’t get Murphy out of cold storage just yet: Not many of Aronofsky’s projects ever seem to get off the ground. (See also: Batman: Year One, Ronin, Lone Wolf and Cub, Watchmen, Black Swan.)

Meanwhile, Disney brought down the house the first day with a surprise, fully-formed teaser for TR2N, featuring none other than the Dude, in both 1983 and 2008 incarnations. Best of all, as I recently wished in my Iron Man review, they seem to have stuck with the “Col. Kurtz up the datastream” idea. That should be great fun. Everyday, I think I’m going to wake up back on the grid…

Update: Also from Comic-Con Day 1, the trailer for Wolverine airs (ho-hum), Coming Soon has a sit-down with new Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat, and Torchwood‘s Captain Jack is up for Captain America? I don’t see that at all.

Update 2: The TR2N trailer is up in really poor Kramervision…and it still looks grand. (A slightly cleaned up version is here.)

You watch the Watchmen. I’ll watch The Wire.

“I’ve not seen any recent comic book films, but I didn’t particularly like the book 300. I had a lot of problems with it, and everything I heard or saw about the film tended to increase [those problems] rather than reduce them: [that] it was racist, it was homophobic, and above all it was sublimely stupid.” As a companion to their Watchmen story, EW has a wide-ranging sit-down with Alan Moore, wherein he discusses Zack Snyder, 300, magic, the afterlife, DC Comics, and his favorite television show: “The absolute pinnacle of anything I’ve seen recently has got to be The Wire. It’s the most stunning piece of television that has ever come out of America, possibly the most stunning piece of television full-stop…So yeah, everything else looks pretty lame next to The Wire.”

Speaking of Moore’s critique of Snyder, I felt a similar unease after reading Snyder’s EW Q&A. Says Snyder of Watchmen: “Everyone says that about [Christopher Nolan’s] Batman Begins. ‘Batman’s dark.’ I’m like, okay, ‘No, Batman’s cool.’ He gets to go to a Tibetan monastery and be trained by ninjas. Okay? I want to do that. But he doesn’t, like, get raped in prison. That could happen in my movie. If you want to talk about dark, that’s how that would go.” Hrm. Ok. I’d have more faith in Snyder’s Watchmen if he didn’t persist in sounding like one of those “Totally Extreme!!” meathead whiteboys from Harold & Kumar.

Manhattan Lands Early.

“The world will look up and shout, ‘Save Us!,’ and I will whisper, ‘No.’” Forget midnight — the teaser for Zack Snyder’s Watchmen has leaked. I must say, Dr. Manhattan looks better than I had anticipated (I like the money shot of him, the American Superpower, in ‘Nam), Rorschach looks great, and the Comedian seems ok, but I have quibbles with Ozymandias (too young), Nite-Owl (too buff) and Silk Spectre (too vamp). Still, I’ll reserve full judgment until I’ve watched it a few dozen more times. In the meantime, how weird is it that there’s actually a trailer for Watchmen out? We seem to be living in the Golden Age of comic book movies. Update: Like most things in this world, it looks much better in HD.

Update 2: “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.” Hrm. Watchmen makes the EW Comicon cover — see below — and their story includes the first pic of Carla Gugino as Sally Jupiter. Sadly, Ozy’s still not looking so hot…maybe they should’ve gone with Jude Law of the Rorschach tattoo, since he was practically begging for the part. (And is it just me or does Crudup-Manhattan look eerily like Kevin Spacey?)

Update 3: Speaking of Sally Jupiter, AICN scores a pinup of the heroine, in the style of Alberto Vargas and in keeping with the WWII-era aesthetic of The Minutemen.

At Midnight All the Agents…

“This trailer speaks to the fanbase in a huge way. Your friends and neighbors will be damn impressed by what they’re seeing, but they’ll also be slightly baffled. They’ll want to know more – who is that blue guy? Who is flying that ship coming out of the water? Are they on Mars? Why is that guy getting thrown through a window? – so get ready to start lending out your book.” One of the CHUD guys takes a spin with the Watchmen trailer, due before The Dark Knight tomorrow night. Sounds great, and while Snyder’s 300 turned out to be more than a little ridiculous, it’s still boasts a helluva trailer.

Update: The Watchmen trailer officially drops over at Empire Online tomorrow, at — of course — the stroke of midnight (EST).

The Ballad of Hollis Mason.

In the fourth installment of their making-of video series, original Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons sings the praises of Zack Snyder’s art direction, and shows brief glimpses of Hollis Mason‘s apartment and Rorschach on patrol. All well and good, but as I said before, obsessive art direction will be the easy part.

Clowns love Dominos.

“Does it depress you…how alone you really are? You had plans…look where that got ya!” Yes, even more news on the Dark Knight front: Domino’s has a fun site up with an exclusive variant trailer…and be sure to play 3-Card Monte with the Joker before you go. (If that site’s bogged down, low-quality versions have popped up on Youtube here and here.)

Update: Another exemplary new poster, and — just in case the deal isn’t closed yet — it looks like the teaser for Zack Snyder’s Watchmen will open the show. It’s safe to say I’m reaching LotR-levels of anticipation at this point.

Update 2: Gotham Tonight Episode 3 (crime in the city) and Episode 4 (Jim Gordon profile) are now up. Looks like Bal’more’s New Day Co-Op and MCU have both made it to Batman’s town.

That Memory May Their Deed Redeem.


This is old news at this point, but nevertheless: AICN procures a vintage-era photo of the Minutemen from Zak Snyder’s forthcoming version of Watchmen. (Note Carla Gugino as Sally Jupiter/Silk Spectre and Jeffrey Dean Morgan as The Comedian.) Hrm…They look a bit cosplay, but then again they probably should.

Update: Also in Watchmen news, the NYT reports that Tales of the Black Freighter will first be spun off as its own DVD, five days after the film comes out. “Mr. Snyder said he was eager to head a direct-to-DVD project, in part because it would allow him to use more material from the ‘Watchmen’ graphic novel. ‘I thought the ‘Black Freighter’ story would never see the light of day,’ he said. ‘The main picture is nearing three hours long and I know I have a fight on my hands just with that.’”

The Watchdog. | Tales of the Pac Freighter.

By way of Bitten Tongue, the Peanuts characters take on the mantles of Watchmen. Charlie Brown with the power of Dr. Manhattan is a bit unnerving, and Linus seems like more of a Nite Owl-type, but Lucy as Silk Spectre and Schroeder as Ozy make perfect sense…and Rorschach is really just one bad day away from Joe Cool.

Also, via Quiddity and in keeping with the GitM theme, the plight of Pac Man gets reconfigured as a Tale of the Black Freighter. Game over, yellow fella.