News: “Watchmen” Wonderment

AICN has a new image from Watchmen, depicting the superhero team of the 1940s known as the Minutemen, in the ballyhooed golden age of costumed crimefighting before it was outlawed and became little more than a fad. From left to right, it’s Silhouette, Mothman, Dollar Bill, Nite Owl, Captain Metropolis, The Comedian, Silk Spectre and Hooded Justice. Further evidence that director Zack Snyder is trying to be as faithful to the source material as possible in a big Warner Bros. superhero movie.

/Film has a very interesting piece detailing more news to that effect. There are two parallel stories in Watchmen - the main plot about aging ex-vigilantes and superhumans during the height of the Cold War, and a tale-within-a-tale called Tales of the Black Freighter, a comic book about a stranded man’s attempts to warn his family of the dangers of a ghost pirate ship. It turns out now that this story won’t be in the film, but an animated version will be released straight to DVD a week after the film opens in theaters. The main character will even be voiced by Gerard Butler, who worked with the guy playing the Comedian, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, in the recent P.S. I Love You [read Morgan's interview calling Butler a 'nutball'].

Most interesting, however, is that Snyder seems to be prepared to fight for a nearly three-hour cut of the main film, with an extended edition DVD release to clock in at about 4.5 hours (which was expected all along - the thing is just too dense to be condensed). A three hour R-rated superhero movie with massive appeal among the genre fans but virtually no recognition outside of that. It would be incredibly ballsy, and Warner Bros. might not be willing to be that balls-out, because they’re still smarting from that $300 million kick in the balls that was Speed Racer. Will mining the fanboys four times - theater ticket, animated DVD, normal DVD and extended edition DVD - be enough to count on? I know I’d buy three of the four, and one always hopes that if the film is good enough, people will come, regardless of name branding. If Snyder does his job right, the film should definitely be that good.