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New York Times said:How Zack Snyder (Just Barely) Got Watchmen to the Screen
A few weeks ago, Zack Snyder nearly became the director who came closest to making a movie version of Watchmen without actually getting it released in theaters. He had been busy editing his adaptation of the graphic novel, written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons, knowing that he was the latest in a long line of directors including Terry Gilliam, Darren Aronofsky and Paul Greengrass who had been unable to bring the comic-book epic about dysfunctional superheroes to the big screen.
Meanwhile as they say in the comics Warner Brothers and 20th Century Fox were engaged in a much-publicized tussle over who owned the rights to the Watchmen movie. Though the two studios eventually made amends, Mr. Snyder did contemplate the very real possibility that his movie (scheduled to open on March 6) might never be released. That, he said laconically, would have been a bummer.
In his first interview since the legal fate of the Watchmen movie was decided, Mr. Snyder spoke about the challenges of turning the much-revered comic book into a film, how his movie stacks up against Christopher Nolans superhero epic The Dark Knight, and his much-blogged-about decision to alter the ending of Watchmen. Excerpts from the interview follow. (This interview may contain spoilers for readers unfamiliar with the original graphic novel.)
An article on Zack Snyder and the making of Watchmen will appear in this weekends Arts & Leisure section.
When you learned that Fox was suing Warner Brothers, did you think that the curse of Watchmen had struck again?
A little bit, Ive got to say. I thought if the movie gets shelved for all time it would be awesome there are a couple of my friends that have seen it, and they were like, We would go on lecture tour and just describe the film to people. That would be our whole thing. We would just be in a big hall and say, O.K., the first shot is this. And then the next shot. And they could have gotten all the things off the Web and they could kind of weave the story. And they could kind of build the film as spoken word. I wasnt completely opposed to that.
Does such a close film adaptation of the graphic novel open you up to the criticism that all you did was shoot the comics?
I guess thats true, but I think you could say that for any book, any work of literature. Its not that easy to just make a graphic non-reality comic book into living, breathing, moving reality. I always say, Im certain I changed Watchmen less than the Coen brothers changed No Country for Old Men. Im certain of it. But you dont hear the Cormac McCarthy fans, like, up in arms about it. They should be. Its like an amazing Pulitzer Prize-winning book. But if we were doing Moby-Dick or Watchmen, its the same issue this is whats on the page. The guy walks into a room, sits down, makes a phone call. Do you do that? Or do you say, It would be better if he sends a telegram?
Thats what happens. Thats Hollywood. Its that old thing of, Listen, kid, its cool, its cute, its a comic book. But let me tell you what the movies going to be like. You need action, you need romance. Dan cant be impotent, are you crazy! I think after the first draft, the studio was like, no naked blue guy. These are the three things that I think the movie would have been without in a classic studio system: Comedians funeral, not necessary. Just bury him. No flashbacks there. Second: Dr. Manhattan on Mars. Unnecessary. He can go to Mars, but then once we see him pfft land on Mars, [snaps fingers] back to the story. And Rorschachs back story do we need to know anything about Rorschachs childhood, or does he need to be interrogated by the psychiatrist at all? He can just be in prison, and then Dan and Laurie bust him out.
For moviegoers who have no familiarity with Watchmen, what do you think youve given them that will get them through the door?
What I tried to do is a couple of things. I tried first of all to give them the reference of the 20th century, to say, Look, its us that Im talking about. And then next, I tried to give them which is in the graphic novel, but I tried to push it even further just that iconography of superhero mythology that I know all of them know. Even if you just go online and look at the chats and see people, like, Is this a Batman movie? What is this? Thats good. You just have to get them about halfway, because I think the rest of it is just going to be the experience of seeing what happens to those icons.
Could you explain your decision to alter your ending from how it plays out in the graphic novel, by removing the giant squid that seems to attack New York?
I think it keeps the movie on point a little more than it would if we had the squid, then I think we would have had to go explain and talk about. I like the squid in the graphic novel. Everyone thinks I hate the squid and I dont get Watchmen. Snyders crazy, hes ruining it. He changed the ending which I did not, I will say. Like, if you really talk about, What is the end of Watchmen? Its the exact same ending that there is in the book, theres no two ways about it. I think for me, the squid just represents a 30-minute right turn that, in order for it to make any sense at all, you would have to take. What I was concerned with, if I took that 30-minute left turn to explain the squid, youd be talking about taking 30 minutes of other stuff out of the movie. And right now, Im on the edge with just how much Rorschach I have, and how much Nite Owl, and how much Dr. Manhattan, just as far as their character stuff. I wouldnt want to lose a minute of that stuff.
Has the success of The Dark Knight, another two-and-a-half hour movie about realistic superheroes, helped your Watchmen film?
I think its helped a lot. I think it has. Its as serious as, like, brain surgery on a baby which I think is a good thing, Im not saying that in a bad way but you cant have a superhero movie more serious than that. Its like The Reader. I think it does lay crucial mythological groundwork for the appreciation of Watchmen. Maybe Im too close to it, but thats my feeling.
I think I just have a natural operatic aesthetic. I cant help it. People have said to me, when they talk about the graphic novel, about how its gritty and real, and I always go, Yeah, you realize also though that a lot of that book takes place on Mars. And Manhattan is 200 feet tall when he walks through the jungles of Vietnam. And the bad guy-slash-good guy does have an Antarctic lair that looks like possibly like an Egyptian pyramid-ish place. That said, its difficult for me, anyway, to leave that conversation not going, Wow, this is a fantastic world. That doesnt mean that the characters inside of that world dont have doubts and fears and are broken, and have to find themselves again. All that stuff. And are rescuing people from a tenement fire is their version of foreplay. Whatever you want to say about it. Because I embrace that part of it, I love that part of it.
The thing about Dark Knight is its objective is to set Batman into your world, so that you can imagine the moral dilemmas he faces are exactly parallel to moral dilemmas that you would face in this world, today, if you were out there fighting crime dressed like a bat. Where I think in Watchmen, because it creates metaphors and symbolism, it has a little freer of a hand. Its pointing a finger at those exact moments, going, Really? Doesnt this also remind you of this? Or doesnt that make you think this? Thats where I think that aesthetically the movies diverge.
Over the years, Alan Moore has complained that filmmakers have taken too many liberties when adapting his work into movies. Do you find it ironic that heres a film that is extremely faithful to his work, and yet hes vowed never to watch it?
I get in trouble every time I make a comment about Alan. Clearly I have a giant respect for him. I dont think you could see this movie and not think that O.K., Snyder likes Alan Moore. His wishes have been that we dont contact him or ask him what he thinks, or make comment about what he might think. I think thats the biggest mistake people have made with him in the past, is theyve assumed how he would feel, and no one could know how he feels but him. So its been its been my mantra to try and keep from making an assumption about him. But it is ironic. [laughs]
Now that Warner Brothers can actually see what youve done with Watchmen, has anyone tried to broach the subject of a sequel?
No, no. I dont know how you would do that. We never did it, but we were going to do a limited release Bazooka bubble gum. I wanted Dave [Gibbons] to draw a comic book for me, and you had to collect all of them to make it make sense. I think its three panels per bubble gum, and you had to get 10 gums to make it all. And I was going to make a thing called Planet Rorschach. So you see this planet, and its covered with New York City. Its like a planet of New York City. Theres no suburbs. Theres one giant Empire State Building, like Mount Olympus, in the middle of it. And hovering above the needle is Manhattan, blue, glowing. But the planets going, Hurm, hurm, hurm, hurm, hurm, hurm. You cant tell, its this big, deafening, Hurm. And as you get close, you go down into the city and the whole world is populated with Rorschachs. And theyre all bumping into each other, going, Hurm, hurm, no compromise, hurm, hurm, Armageddon. Thats basically it. So I was like, Is that the movie you guys want to make?
So, definitely, no Watchmen sequel?
Listen, they own the rights. If they wanted to go and hire some guy to make them a sequel to Watchmen, I dont know that they would get any of those actors to do it, and I know that I wouldnt have anything to do with it. But they own it. They can do whatever they want. They can make a movie Ive spoiled it, I think, a little bit. Do you leave that film going, Man, I wonder what the next chapter is? [laughs]
But you know as well as anyone, a movie studio is a big machine, and once the gears get turning
Yeah, theres not a lot of ideas, I guess. It is true. Just like this 300 sequel that we talked about. I said to them, heres the thing, this is the way I would do it. The way I would do it is if Frank drew a graphic novel, it came out in the marketplace and people said, Thats pretty cool. And I read it and said, You know what, Frank, thats pretty cool. Maybe well make this into a movie. That is the only version the studio wants it to be, sit with Frank, come up with an idea, write a screenplay, maybe hell do a graphic novel based on the screenplay. Im like, Yeah, I want nothing to do with that. I have no interest in that. It would be like me going to Cormac McCarthy and going, I have an idea for a movie: You write a book and Ill write a movie, and you can release it. Youll win a Pulitzer, Ill win an Oscar. Itll be awesome. The attitude toward comic books, they show their hand a little bit. They would never say that about a real novelist, but they would about a comic book. They just crank those out, right? Its like no big deal. In the end, all I would hope is that geek culture, this movie gives geek culture a little bit of cred.
Pretty good interview for those that are interested.
