Watchmen

¹²³ · Mar 2, 2009

The release for american audience is really close now. Is anyone going to watch it?

Wikipedia Link

IMDb Link

Colonel Ronan · Mar 2, 2009

Yeah, I've seen a few of the trailers and it looks alright. Mostly because it's made by the directors of 300.

bbwMax · Mar 2, 2009

Looks amazing, can't wait to see it, I think I'll make it my first 18 film in a cinema My Birthday is a week after its UK release

BasX · Mar 2, 2009

Wasn't a fan of 300. Excited for this though

Colonel Ronan · Mar 2, 2009

Max said: ↑

Looks amazing, can't wait to see it, I think I'll make it my first 18 film in a cinema My Birthday is a week after its UK release
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Nice.

BasX · Mar 2, 2009

Nice!

WarriorFan · Mar 2, 2009

I wonder how closely they will stick to the original story. One one hand, I hate when movies go way off the book, on the other, I don't think the story as-is would be a very good movie.

speeds · Mar 2, 2009

WarriorFan said: ↑

I wonder how closely they will stick to the original story. One one hand, I hate when movies go way off the book, on the other, I don't think the story as-is would be a very good movie.
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Supposedly it sticks closely to the story which causes some confusion for casual viewers.

¹²³ · Mar 5, 2009

Watchmen's World Draws From Strangelove, Taxi Driver

By Hugh Hart March 04, 2009 | 7:13:00 PMCategories: Comics, Movies, Sci-Fi, Watchmen

The Owl Ship from the Watchmen movie rests in the Owl Chamber, a large, enclosed set built on a soundstage in Vancouver, British Columbia.
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Subway superhero headquarters and a menacing vision of Manhattan gone haywire form the backdrop of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' monumental graphic novel. For production designer Alex McDowell, who previously dreamed up sci-fi environments for Minority Report and the urban jungle of Fight Club, translating the pulp particulars into a credible big-screen experience required 13 months in Vancouver, British Columbia, and several more months in Los Angeles brainstorming with Watchmen director Zack Snyder.

"Watchmen was a fascinating because there's this incredibly strong political framework that relies on this completely fantastical world," McDowell said. "Yet it has to be a world the audience can completely believes in: What if superheroes were not fantasy and really existed in our world?"

To lend the fantastical saga some real-world gravitas, McDowell pinned 150 feet of reference materials onto the wall of the Watchmen "war room," gradually replacing frames from the graphic novel with period photographs and other appropriate imagery.

"We had a chart that mapped real-world historical events against Watchmen historical events, plus an additional layer of pop culture woven into it what is really a parallel history," he said.

In a conversation with Wired.com, McDowell described the thinking behind some key Watchmen environments and the way movies like The Man Who Fell to Earth, Taxi Driver and Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb found their way into the final cut of Snyder's film, which opens Friday.

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The Owl Chamber

"The Owl Chamber is the fortress of solitude, sort of like the Bat Cave," McDowell said, "but our Owl Chamber has a logic driving it: That Dan Dreiberg [the street name of Nite Owl II] went to Harvard or MIT in 1962 and came out this incredibly well-qualified engineer who then went underground as a vigilante and took over a subway station. He's illicitly brought in machine parts from military and aerospace industries. In many ways, the components could have really existed.... It's very science-driven."

Nixon's War Room in Watchmen is modeled after a set from Stanley Kubrick's Cold War masterpiece from 1964, Dr. Strangelove (pictured below, right).
Photo: Clay Enos/Warner Bros.

Dr. Strangelove's 1964-era war room.
Photo courtesy Columbia Pictures
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The War Room via Dr. Strangelove

"Normally you avoid copying other movies," McDowell said, "but Gibbons told us the war room in the graphic novel was based on Dr. Strangelove, so we felt empowered to emulate that set (pictured right).

The filmmakers raised the art-imitating-life ante on Dr. Strangelove, McDowell said.

"Instead of putting an actor there to represent the U.S. president, as in Kubrick's film, we actually put Nixon and Kissinger characters into our set and we put the Manhattan strikes up on the wall instead of the Russian strikes shown in Dr. Strangelove."

Watchmen's urban facades spring from period New York photography, Taxi Driver grit and panels from Moore and Gibbons' graphic novel. The Treasure Island Comic Shop's decaying surfaces were painted in strong tertiary, then heavily aged.
Photo: Clay Enos/Warner Bros.

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New York City by Way of Taxi Driver

"Zack and I talked about the best representation of the reality level of the film and decided to use Taxi Driver as the core reference," McDowell said. "It's the exact right period. Martin Scorsese obviously was very selective with these controlled compositions, so the film represented a very good blend of control and reality.

"We took frames from Taxi Driver, then painted them with the Watchmen colors so the end result is both period-correct, pop-culturally referential and graphic-novel layered. One of the bars on the street came directly from Taxi Driver."

This bedroom set was inspired by design company Jensen, decorator of the Kennedy-era White House, and a scene from the David Bowie film The Man Who Fell to Earth.
Photo: Clay Enos/Warner Bros.

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Dr. Manhattan's Apartment as Filtered Through The Man Who Fell To Earth

"The set for Dr. Manhattan's apartment became this really fun weave of reality and pop culture," McDowell said. "It reminded me of a set in The Man Who Fell to Earth."

Drawing from David Bowie's 1976 sci-fi movie, McDowell explained: "After Bowie is discovered to be a visitor from outer space, he gets placed in this holding zone which looks like a beautiful, ornate mansion but is actually fake top to bottom. From the outside, you see someone go through a dusty corridor and it opens to this opulent space."

Watchmen stars Matthew Goode as Ozymandias, left, and draws inspiration from The Man Who Fell to Earth, which starred David Bowie as Thomas Jerome Newton, right.
Watchmen photo: Clay Enos/Warner Bros.; The Man Who Fell to Earth photo courtesy Columbia Pictures

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"We took that premise copied from The Man Who Fell to Earth and combined it with designers who would have revamped the space according to Jackie Kennedy's tastes," McDowell said.

"The notion of an alien coming down to Earth was very much related to Dr. Manhattan and Laurie [Juspeczyk, aka Silk Spectre II] in Watchmen. These cultural references plus real-world Kennedy plus the industrial requirements of this vast warehouse we used as a soundstage in Vancouver — none of it exists in the graphic novel but we were able to layer all of that into the environment."
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Celtic Fan · Mar 5, 2009

I'm REALLY dying to see this. The Graphic Novel series was really good save for the ending which was a bit of a let down. I'm still interested in seeing how much of the story they follow though. I'm assuming they drop the whole newstand guy ranting bit.

Moo2K4 · Mar 5, 2009

I am soooo excited for this movie. I've been looking forward to it ever since I saw the trailer 9 months ago. I'm probably going to the midnight tonight, just gotta pick up my tickets here later today.

BasX · Mar 5, 2009

It has gotten positive reviews, but nothing special from what i have heard, I'll probably go next week

WarriorFan · Mar 5, 2009

Celtic Fan said: ↑

I'm REALLY dying to see this. The Graphic Novel series was really good save for the ending which was a bit of a let down. I'm still interested in seeing how much of the story they follow though. I'm assuming they drop the whole newstand guy ranting bit.
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The newstand guy does a good job of setting the time period and the mindset of people during the cold war. Plus I think the comic/pirate storyline was pretty cool and you can't really have one without the other.

I agree with you though that the ending kind of sucked. That is why I'm really hesitant about seeing this.

Moo2K4 · Mar 5, 2009

Just got my tickets for this....11:59PM cannot come soon enough.

Blazer Freak · Mar 5, 2009

It looks pretty bad ass. I'd go to a midnight one, but it's almost 3 hours long, and I don't think I'd be able to appreciate it at 3AM.

Moo2K4 · Mar 5, 2009

Yea...the length is a concern, but staying up til 3am isn't anything new to me, so I'm not worried about being unable to appreciate it because of it's length. Plus, I have full intentions on seeing it again sometime this weekend anyways.

¹²³ · Mar 5, 2009

'Watchmen' has already broken a record
Debuting in the most theaters for an R-rated film

By Carl DiOrio
March 4, 2009, 03:51 PM ET

However high "Watchmen" grosses can climb, the superhero actioner sure will be playing wide: Its 3,611 playdates will be the most ever for an R-rated film.

Further aiding its much-watched bow, the Zack Snyder-helmed comic book adaptation will play in an impressive 1,600 locations starting at midnight Thursday. That's substantially more than the 656 midnight shows that helped Snyder's ancient Greece actioner "300" fetch an incredible $28 million in only the first day of its $71 million opening weekend in March 2007.

The first-day haul for "300" was the second-highest ever for an R-rated pic, after the $42.5 million tally that Warners registered with 2003's "The Matrix Reloaded," according to Nielsen EDI. The previous widest release for an R-rated pic was the distributor's 3,603-theater bow for "Reloaded."

Warners distribution president Dan Fellman said "Watchmen" wasn't a tough sell with theater owners.

"The reaction at our exhibitor screenings was terrific, and after the success of '300,' there wasn't an exhibitor in the country who didn't want to play Zack Snyder's next movie," Fellman said.

The "Watchmen" playdates include 124 engagements in Imax giant-screen auditoriums.

"All will have midnight shows, and that's a function of demand," Imax Filmed Entertainment president Greg Foster said. "If there weren't midnight shows, there would be a riot. The demand is very, very strong."

Imax's Web site crashed four times this week because of traffic surges by "Watchmen" fans looking for ticket information, Foster said.

Online ticketer Fandango said Wednesday that "Watchmen" purchases represented 90% of its advance ticket sales for this weekend. No other wide opener is set for the frame.

"Watchmen" was co-produced by Warners and Legendary Pictures. Fox also will get a taste of profits under terms of a settlement of a dispute over distribution rights.
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Link
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Master Shake · Mar 5, 2009

I really hope it sticks with the book. The graphic novel was amazing and the movie looks just as good.

La Bomba · Mar 5, 2009

Looks stupid as hell. I don't plan on watching it.

¹²³ · Mar 6, 2009

'Watchmen' Reviews Are In: Everyone Disagrees!

We give you a rundown of what the critics are saying about Zack Snyder's adaptation of the beloved graphic novel.

By Eric Ditzian

It's finally happening. "Watchmen" is here, and now the mere mortals among us who didn't catch advance screenings or couldn't stake out a midnight showing (what, you had a job to wake up for in the morning?) can begin to weigh in. Success or failure? Triumph or catastrophe? What's the consensus on Zack Snyder's adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' universally lauded graphic novel?

Predictably, there isn't one. Critical reaction to the film has been split into three camps: those who immediately loved the book and now immediately love the movie (our own Kurt Loder called it a "monumental accomplishment"), those who love the book so much they believe the movie should never have been made, and those who never read the book and now are wondering, "Really? This junk is what everyone's so excited about?"

And so it goes. Will you love it? Hate it? Have you somehow never even heard of it? MTV News did the investigative work and now presents to you the good, the bad and the ugly "Watchmen" reviews.

<big>The Good</big>
<big></big>
"Fans of Alan Moore's landmark graphic novel, concerning a ring of Gotham superheroes brought out of retirement by an impending nuclear threat, will thrill to every pulpy line of dialogue and bloody act of retribution retained in director Zack Snyder's slavishly faithful adaptation." — Justin Chang, Variety

"Honestly, if I have a complaint it is that the film feels brief to me. Two hours and 40 minutes and it went by like a blink for me. I easily would have patiently sat for another 2 hours, but that's me." — Harry Knowles, Ain't It Cool News

"Another bold exercise in the liberation of the superhero movie. It's a compelling visceral film — sound, images and characters combined into a decidedly odd visual experience that evokes the feel of a graphic novel. It seems charged from within by its power as a fable; we sense it's not interested in a plot so much as with the dilemma of functioning in a world losing hope." — Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

<big>The Bad</big>
<big></big>
"Even 'Watchmen' fanatics may be doomed to a disappointment that results from trying to stay this faithful to a comic book. The opening-credit sequence has a marvelous audacity ... [but] once the film proper begins, Snyder, who did such a terrific job of adapting the solemn Olympian war porn of '300,' treats each image with the same stuffy hermetic reverence. He doesn't move the camera or let the scenes breathe. He crams the film with bits and pieces, trapping his actors like bugs wriggling in the frame." — Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly

"Alan Moore was right. There isn't a movie in his landmark graphic novel 'Watchmen' — at least not a really good one. What we get instead is something acceptable but pedestrian, an adaptation that is more a prisoner of its story than the master of it." — Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

" 'Watchmen' is a lighter version of very dark material. On its own, the movie is an efficient adrenaline delivery machine, occasionally taking flight and occasionally sputtering, but most often just motoring down a long road with colorful scenery to pass the time." — Peter Martin, Cinematical.com

<big>The Ugly</big>
<big></big>
" 'Watchmen' features this year's hands-down winner of the bad movie sex award, superhero division: a moment of bliss that takes place on board Nite Owl's nifty little airship, accompanied by Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah.' " — A.O. Scott, The New York Times

"The bad news about 'Watchmen' is that it grinds and squelches on for two and a half hours, like a major operation. The good news is that you don't have to stay past the opening credit sequence — easily the highlight of the film." — Anthony Lane, The New Yorker

"Whenever a fight begins (and there's one about every 15 minutes in this 160-minute movie), brace yourself for an abundance of narratively pointless bone-crunching, finger-twisting, limb-sawing, and skull-hacking. These extreme sports are often filmed in 'Matrix'-style slow motion, a technique that tends to grind the story to a halt. Like the money shots in porn movies, Snyder's action scenes are an end in themselves — gratifying if you like that sort of thing, gross if you don't." — Dana Stevens, Slate
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Colonel Ronan Continue...?

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La Bomba The Future

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