Watchmen

[hedwig]

aaaaaaand relink: http://www.movieweb.com/video/V08G4asxyEIKST

[I Don't Believe in Beatles]

Another link: http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/watchmen/

[cron]

fuck this movie and its thus far impeccable production.

[Pas]

Wowowow !

This looks great ! I always taught the original story was great but the art was a bit lame since I'm a new-generation-guy so I guess this will be good

[hedwig]

trailer's not that good.

it's 300. slow motion overkill, even has a shot of a character screaming..

everything "looks" good but whatever, this movie is gonna hurt to watch.

[picolas]

i love this trailer. seeing it in imax was a great start to dark knight. the only fairly shitty part is the faux slo mo owl fall and perhaps the american flag. everything else is stupendous. it actually improves the original song. crudup gives a great trailer performance in the first few seconds. i have to know what could lead a man (patrick wilson!) in an owl suit to scream like that. i'm disturbed by the vaporization of an innocent vietnamese man. the voice of rorshach is pretty damn perfect. as is his subtle shape shifting mask. and how can you not be awed by the floating glass palace emerging from the sand?? this trailer has inspired me to finally finish the book (which i was half way through and don't know why i stopped). 9/10.

[MacGuffin]

BREAKING: My Chemical Romance To Perform Bob Dylan Cover In 'Watchmen' Movie
Source: MTV

Now that we've all seen the dazzling first trailer for next year's "Watchmen" flick, it has officially become my most-anticipated movie of 2009. And the news just keeps getting better, as director Zack Snyder has revealed exclusively to MTV News that the only post-1985 song in the film will feature one of today's hottest bands.

"My Chemical Romance is absolutely awesome," the "300" director revealed. "And Gerard [Way] is a huge fan of 'Watchmen'."

Like the classic graphic novel, Snyder's "Watchmen" film will span the decades utilizing a "Forrest Gump"-like soundtrack of period-evocative music from the turbulent Sixties, the me-decade Seventies and the awesome Eighties. But since the film ends in 1985, Snyder's music needs to be capped after his Hendrix, Dylan and Simon & Garfunkel tracks have had their moments. Finding a way around the limitation, Snyder has launched plans to head into the studio with the emo-punk powergroup behind such hits as "Helena" and "Welcome to the Black Parade."

"[Frontman Way] is a super-great guy, and an awesome musician, and so we're trying to work with them right now to put together possibly a song for the end titles," he revealed, adding that he wants MCR to revisit a classic Bob Dylan song. "[They'll perform] like a cover of "Desolation Row," or something like that."

The track will close out the film, and will be the only modern composition making up the movie's soundtrack. "I've talked with him and I've heard a little bit of some stuff that's he's done," Snyder said of Way's early attempts to take on Bob Dylan. "And it's pretty freaking cool."

The MCR singer is a lifelong comic book geek who attended the School of Visual Arts in New York City with plans to join the industry. Comic fans know him as the creator of "The Umbrella Academy," a successful superhero series that he's poured his spare time into recently, and could possibly be turned into its own movie eventually.

"Honestly, he contacted me, just as a fan," Snyder remembered of his first contact with Gerard Way. "[He wanted] to say like: "I hope the movie's cool." And then we went, "Hey, maybe we can do something." So it's worked out pretty cool."

For now, Snyder and Way will continue working on the Dylan cover for the film's end titles; in the meantime, however, the director said he's still being surprised every day as celebrities come out of the woodwork revealing themselves to be fans of the 20-year-old Alan Moore-Dave Gibbons classic. "You find out there's a Watchmen geek in there somewhere, like in any organization," he grinned. "It's like a secret government group. You can sneak in by going, "Come on, I'm a 'Watchmen' fan."

[hedwig]

stop raping my soul, zack snyder. stop.

[RegularKarate]

stop raping my soul, zack snyder. stop.

haha, seriously... So many people are being fooled by this trailer.

My wife hasn't read the comic AND she's an intelligent person and she hated the trailer because of it's cheap tricks and generic super-hero look... I just think it's ridiculous that they're trying to exploit the slickness that doesn't really exist in the comic book.  This will be terrible.

[MacGuffin]

'Watchmen': An Exclusive First Look
''300'' director Zack Snyder is taking on the shocking antiheroes of that great and supposedly unfilmable graphic novel ''Watchmen.'' Fans at this year's Comic-Con will get an early look at the movie -- but not before you do

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.''

[cron]

stop raping my soul, zack snyder. stop.

haha, seriously... So many people are being fooled by this trailer.

My wife hasn't read the comic AND she's an intelligent person and she hated the trailer because of it's cheap tricks and generic super-hero look... I just think it's ridiculous that they're trying to exploit the slickness that doesn't really exist in the comic book.  This will be terrible.

one of my favorites posts ever in the world.

how do you guys feel about the fact that this stuff will be super mainstream now?

[ASmith]

Those blue dudes are cool, at least.

[MacGuffin]

Studio War Involving 'Watchmen' Heats Up
Source: New York Times

LOS ANGELES — The legal brawl over "Watchmen" is about to get rougher.

Lawyers for Warner Brothers, which has already shot a movie of this graphic novel about the seamier side of superhero life, and lawyers for 20th Century Fox, which claims it owns the rights to the material, laid plans for a frenzied fight in a joint report submitted to the federal court here on Friday.

Fox has said it will seek an injunction blocking Warner's planned release of the film next March. Warner has argued that Fox should not be allowed to stop the movie, after standing by while Warner and its partners on the film, Paramount Pictures and Legendary Pictures, spent more than $100 million on the production, directed by Zack Snyder ("300").

In a summary of its position in Friday's report, Warner said Fox "sat silently" as one of the producers of "Watchmen," Lawrence Gordon, took the project "to studio after studio with Fox's express knowledge."

Fox, which filed a lawsuit in February, has claimed in its own filings that Mr. Gordon did not keep the studio apprised of his plans, as required by a 1994 agreement. That deal granted Mr. Gordon rights to "Watchmen" in "turnaround" — an industry term for arrangements under which producers can move a project from one studio to another under certain conditions.

In Warner's version of events, Mr. Gordon, who is not named as a defendant in the Fox suit, actually offered the project to Fox in 2005, shortly before bringing it to Warner after years of trying to make the movie with Paramount. "Fox simply rejected it," Warner said in the Friday filing.

On Friday Warner said Fox had gone so far as to grant it rights to the title "Watchmen," which Fox had earlier registered with the Motion Picture Association of America.

Fox, moreover, was paid $320,000 by one of Mr. Gordon's companies for rights to "Watchmen" as early as 1991, Warner lawyers said in the report. Fox has said that agreement was superseded by a later deal, under which Mr. Gordon was supposed to deliver a much larger buyout price that has never been paid.

The report also outlined conflicting requests for a trial date: as early as next June, if Fox has its way, or April, if Warner prevails.

Friday's filing makes it clear that not only Mr. Gordon, but also Paramount, Legendary and even Universal Pictures can expect to be drawn into the fray. Universal had tried to make a version of the film in 2001, before Paramount took over. And though Paramount dropped its plans for the movie, it became involved as a partner when Warner teamed up with the director Mr. Snyder in the wake of the box office success of "300."

[Sleepless]

That should be a movie. I hear Leo's attached.

There is no way Warners is not going to release this on schedule. Fox is just giving them free publicity. All this legal hoo-hah is just going to distract from how much the finished film is going to be criticized by the fans once it's released but no-ones gonna care by then cos they'll al have made shitloads a la Crystal Skull.

[MacGuffin]

Alan Moore on 'Watchmen' movie: 'I will be spitting venom all over it'
For the record, Alan Moore has not softened his view on Hollywood nor its plan to bring his classic graphic novel "Watchmen" to the screen next March.
Source: Los Angeles Times

"I find film in its modern form to be quite bullying," Moore told me during an hour-long phone call from his home in England. "It spoon-feeds us, which has the effect of watering down our collective cultural imagination. It is as if we are freshly hatched birds looking up with our mouths open waiting for Hollywood to feed us more regurgitated worms. The 'Watchmen' film sounds like more regurgitated worms. I for one am sick of worms. Can't we get something else? Perhaps some takeout? Even Chinese worms would be a nice change."

Moore is often described as a recluse but, really, I think it's more precise to say he is simply too busy at his writing desk. "Yes, perhaps I should get out more," he said with a chuckle. In conversation, the 54-year-old iconoclast is everything his longtime readers would expect -- articulate, witty, obstinate and selectively enigmatic. Far from grouchy, he only gets an edge in his voice when he talks about the effect of Hollywood on the comics medium that he so memorably energized in the 1980s with "Saga of the Swamp Thing," "V for Vendetta," "Marvelman" and, of course, "Watchmen," his 1986 masterpiece. The Warner Bros. film version of "Watchmen" is due in theaters in March although the project has encountered some turbulence with a lawsuit filed by 20th Century Fox over who has the rights to the property. Moore has no intention of seeing the film and, in fact, he hints that he has put a magical curse on the entire endeavor.

"Will the film even be coming out? There are these legal problems now, which I find wonderfully ironic. Perhaps it's been cursed from afar, from England. And I can tell you that I will also be spitting venom all over it for months to come."

Moore said all that with more mischievous glee than true malice, but I know it will still pain "Watchmen" director Zack Snyder when he reads it. The director of "300" absolutely adores the work of Moore and has been laboring intensely to bring "Watchmen" to the screen with faithful sophistication. But I don't think there's any way to win Moore over, he simply detests Hollywood. Moore said he has never watched any of the film adaptations of his comics creations (which have included "V for Vendetta," "From Hell," "Constantine" and "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen") and that he believes "Watchmen" is "inherently unfilmable." He also rues the effect of Hollywood's siren call on the contemporary comics scene.

"There are three or four companies now that exist for the sole purpose of creating not comics, but storyboards for films. It may be true that the only reason the comic book industry now exists is for this purpose, to create characters for movies, board games and other types of merchandise. Comics are just a sort of pumpkin patch growing franchises that might be profitable for the ailing movie industry."

There is one film that Moore is supporting right now. It's the new DVD release entitled "The Mindscape of Alan Moore" and it's an artfully executed documentary that is built entirely around Moore sitting in his somewhat spooky living room and ruminating about art, storytelling, magic and culture. The movie was made by Dez Vylenz, who was still a student at the London International Film School when he sent Moore a letter expressing interest in creating a documentary film on the writer as his senior project.

That project went well and, several years ago, the filmmaker and the author decided to do it again for a film that would be released to the public. Vylenz has intercut images and used visual effects that give the film a psychedelic swirl and shamanistic textures (it reminded me a bit of the sensibilities of a Godfrey Reggio film, such as "Koyaanisqatsi," but on a far, far smaller scale production-wise).

"It was very enjoyable to sit there in a chair and talking and talking and talking because, as anyone who knows me for even an hour will tell you, that is my second nature. The idea of it -- just me talking -- sounded incredibly boring to me but Dez Vylenz is very talented and if there is anything about the film that is not a success, I would blame the flaws of its central character." The film was made in 2003 but is just now reaching stores, with a Sept. 30 on-sale date as a two-disc DVD from Shadowsnake Films.

In the film, Moore makes it clear that he believes magic and storytelling are clearly linked and that, upon closer examination, the definitions of what is real and what is imagined are far more slippery than generally considered. This documentary is not the compelling success that "Crumb" was but, like that 1994 film by Terry Zwigoff, this one will leave casual viewers with the impression that some of the more peculiar geniuses of our day tend to gravitate to comics.

Moore sometimes wears metallic talons, describes himself as an anarchist and, in the past, has told interviewers that he worships an ancient Roman snake god. But what's really unusual about him is that he seems to be the very last creator in comics who would hang up on Hollywood anytime it calls.

"I got into comics because I thought it was a good and useful medium that had not been explored to its fullest potential," Moore told me.

He went on to explain that it was the late Will Eisner who brought a cinematic approach to comics in the 1940s after watching "Citizen Kane" dozens of times and transferring its visual style and approach to transitions to the pages of "The Spirit." "As much as I admire Eisner, I think maintaining that approach in recent history has done more harm than good. If you approach comics as a poor relation to film, you are left with a movie that does not move, has no soundtrack and lacks the benefit of having a recognizable movie star in the lead role."

Moore said that with "Watchmen," he told the epic tale of a large number of characters over decades of history with "a range of techniques" that cannot be translated to the movie screen, among them the "book within a book" technique, which took readers through a second, interior story as well as documents and the writings of characters. He also said he was offended by the amount of money and resources that go into the Hollywood projects. "They take an idea, bowdlerize it, blow it up, make it infantile and spend $100 million to give people a brief escape from their boring and often demeaning lives at work. It's obscene and it's offensive. This is not the culture I signed up for. I'm sure I sound like Bobby Fischer talking about chess "

Moore said he is now working on new installments in his marvelous comics series "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," which is far more nuanced and daring than the forgettable film of the same title. The new stories take the narrative to the moon where there is a war underway between the giant insects (inspired by the H.G. Wells 1901 book "The First Men in the Moon") and nude lunar amazons. "The idea, it pretty much sells itself, doesn't it?"

He is also at work on a massive, 750,000-word novel. "It's the grown-up kind, with no pictures at all," he said. "Although modern binding technology may be overwhelmed by the size of it. It's a huge mad fantasy called 'Jerusalem.' "

The story is partially a history of his native Northampton that dates back to its Saxon settlement days in AD 700, but it is also a "demented children's story" that features Charlie Chaplin, Oliver Cromwell and "an explanation of the afterlife that conforms to all known laws of physics."

There's also a huge sort of reference book of magic that he is toiling on with contributions from notable artists and writing peers. It delves into Kabbalah, astral projection, seance, tarot, practical applications of magic and deep research into the origins of magic history, such as the true beginnings of the Faust tales. Talking about the book, the skeptical shaman of comics sounded positively giddy, especially for a parchment wizard trapped in a crass digital age.

"Magic is a state of mind. It is often portrayed as very black and gothic and that is because certain practitioners played that up for a sense of power and prestige. That is a disservice. Magic is very colorful. Of this, I am sure."