Zach Snyder to Direct Watchmen

[Carmine Falcone]

Why is the Hayter script so great? Didn't he change the ending?

 

[Darthphere]

I hope Zach can pull it off, and he has a solid script to work off of. I guess we'll know when 300 comes out if hes up to task.

 

[Motown Marvel]

hmmmmm.

 

[Gogo Bananas]

Just say no to a Watchmen feature film.
Root for an HBO miniseries.

 

[Darthphere]

The funny thing about Watchmen is I think it has too much to be in a movie, and a too little to warrant a mini-series.

 

[Chaos Bringer]

Greengrass was a better choice

You sure?
DOTD was such a great film for a number of remarkable reasons...
Snyder can seriously create tension in a non-cheese way. I think he knows how to shoot real people and can tell a great story. I kinda wish he was given XMen. I'm very happy with this choice.
Snyder is a mighty director.

 

[ToddIsDead]

You sure?
DOTD was such a great film for a number of remarkable reasons...
Snyder can seriously create tension in a non-cheese way. I think he knows how to shoot real people and can tell a great story. I kinda wish he was given XMen. I'm very happy with this choice.
Snyder is a mighty director.

I kind of agree with you. I think he is a very talented director that unfortunately got stuck with a movie that no one wanted to see for his first movie. Even though it was an unwanted remake, it was still pretty good.

 

[Assassin32]

Why is the Hayter script so great? Didn't he change the ending?

I was wondering the same thing. . .

 

[Motown Marvel]

Why is the Hayter script so great? Didn't he change the ending?

no, not really...well kind of...it was reworked in a way that would work better for film, but the results are the same. like, the idea of a giant genetically manufactured space alien transported to and exploding in NY killing half the city isnt gonna be bought by a general audience. that sort of thing works in a comic...but not so much in a movie. the ending still has half of NY being destroyed, but just in a different fashion....i forget exactly how its done, but...

 

[Gogo Bananas]

No matter what they do, Alan Moore will whine and disown the project.

 

[Assassin32]

no, not really...well kind of...it was reworked in a way that would work better for film, but the results are the same. like, the idea of a giant genetically manufactured space alien transported to and exploding in NY killing half the city isnt gonna be bought by a general audience. that sort of thing works in a comic...but not so much in a movie. the ending still has half of NY being destroyed, but just in a different fashion....i forget exactly how its done, but...

What about Veidt getting killed? Wasn't that in Hayter's script? Because **** that ****.

 

[CrimsonMist]

No matter what they do, Alan Moore will whine and disown the project.

actually, he seems rather sane about the Watchmen movie. Im friends with Kurt at Cinescape, and he interviewed Alan Moore about a month or so ago. I asked him to ask Moore about his thoughts on the Watchmen script by Hayter. He liked it...thought it was as faithful as they could get it, but still wont see it. But he was calm about it.

and about Viedt dying, i believe that's only in Draft 3

 

[Gogo Bananas]

And I betcha they work 9/11 and terrorists into it somehow, just to modernize it.

 

[CrimsonMist]

And I betcha they work 9/11 and terrorists into it somehow, just to modernize it.

no, they didn't. It's as faithful as you'll ever see. None of that terrorist, 9/11 crap. It's strictly the comic book.

a thread was posted, with a link to download the 3rd draft. So ask around, someone can send it to you.

 

[War Party]

July 13, 2006 - IGN FilmForce has learned more about the nature of screenwriter Alex Tse's work on Watchmen. Zack Snyder is attached to direct the long-in-development comic book movie for Warner Bros.


Tse, a relative newcomer, was recently brought on to rework the script, a move that struck some fans as curious since David Hayter's screenplay adaptation had been widely lauded by those who read it.

Sources close to the production advised IGN that Tse's task is to essentially knit together two of Hayter's drafts, which are said to represent his best efforts on the project from when Paul Greengrass was attached to direct.

There's no word yet if or when Watchmen might finally lurch forward into actual production, or how the solid but less than spectacular box office results for Superman Returns might affect other comic book movies in development at Warners.

http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/718/718386p1.html

 

[ToddIsDead]

Awesome news. So I guess they're still going with Hayter's script and he'll get a writing credit and everything.

 

[Edward Brock]

This was pretty fast. There's already a review on Alex Tse's script on Latino Review.

The good news is, this draft wasn't created from scratch. It is based on Hayter's script, with a few changes. The bad news? Those changes are mainly new action sequences and an altered ending.

All I have to say is... why. Why do that? Why dumb it down?


Stupid me. This is Hollywood after all.

 

[ToddIsDead]

That's kind of depressing.

 

[CrimsonMist]

that review depresses me. Why do they have to change something that's perfect? this Tse character is worthless. He's taken something that was great to begin with and ruined it. WB is now just whipping a dead horse.

 

[War Party]

Disappoints me too.

 

[WallCrawl]

By now we really shouldn't be surprised that the suits have called for more unecessary action sequences.

But it doesn't make it any less disheartening.

 

[IKnowSomeJudo]

In Tse’s draft we see Rorschach, the crazy vigilante, fighting cops in almost every single scene that he’s in.

As if Rorschach's character wasn't already pretty washed-down in Hayter's draft. Most of his political views were reduced to "F*** tha Police", anyway. Now this. Fantastic. It's Sam Hamm all over again.

 

[Assassin32]

Well. . . none of us can say this is a suprise.

 

[Edward Brock]

More from Snyder at CC:

http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=23955

(...)QUINT: I have to bring up WATCHMEN before they pull me away...

ZACH SNYDER: Ah, yeah. Of course.

QUINT: The one question more than any other that is on fan's minds is how the hell are you going to fit that entire story into one movie?

ZACH SNYDER: Hrmm...

QUINT: I know you probably don't want to go into much detail, but...

ZACH SNYDER: No, no, no, no, no... I don't mind talking about it. I love it. It's an awesome thing. It's a crazy and strange turn of events that it ends up on my desk with someone going, "Oh, you want to make this into a movie?" I'm like, "What? Are you kidding me?" Seems like a mistake, but also one that I'm not going to tell anyone about because, you know, I'm probably over-sensitive... maybe too much. You know, my experience with the material so far and the different drafts that had been written, including Alex (Tse)'s latest and the book itself... When I was introduced to it in-motion. I hadn't read the other drafts when it was in development.

Now, when we started they were like, "Hey, what do you think?" Boom, here's all the drafts in a big pile next to me.

Basically I got the book and the script and put them next together. For me, my copy of WATCHMEN is highlighted and things are written all over it. My first order of business, and it's a thing that I can't say anyone has got a handle on, except for me, is getting the ideas of the book into the screenplay. The (David) Hayter draft to some extent does and Alex's to some extent does, but I don't think anyone has cracked it.

The problem of WATCHMEN isn't the mystery of who is killing who, it's not the love story, it's not the betrayals or anything like that. I think the problem is that the screenwriters, and maybe rightly so... the mechanics is the first thing they worry about, you know? Of course, if you don't have the mechanics you can't hang story on it.

For me, the work of WATCHMEN is you take those stories and you figure out how you get at the essence of the book. The book is transcendent of the story. The philosophy of the book... that's what needs to get put back in the screenplays, in my opinion.

I'm waiting to see what Alex does next. I think beyond that my hope is to... now that we're finishing 300 hundred, my hope is to really set some good time aside to really roll up my sleeves and go, "Not only here's the ideas, here's the frames I love. This HAS to be in the movie..."

QUINT: Are you wanting to go for a more realistic, less stylized vision of the world?

ZACH SNYDER: No, I don't know that the filmmakers in the past who have been attached to this... I just don't know what their take on the actual frames were. I gotta believe that they kind of really... I mean, I don't know Paul (Greengrass). I like his movies, but he doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would take a graphic novel and film it, you know what I'm saying? It's going to be verite-ish. Whereas for me, my style is, like, graphic novel. I want to be able to get as much as the graphic novel in the movie as I can. I want the experience of watching the movie to be similar to the experience of reading the graphic novel, but also be its own thing.

I think Alan (Moore) has said himself that the object of a book is to be a book, to be read by the fire and curl up with on a Saturday night. The object of a movie is different.

QUINT: Sometimes they mix together, though.

ZACH SNYDER: Absolutely!

QUINT: With a movie like Sin City and hopefully 300, the fans don't want to see someone's alternate take on this material. They want to see moving versions of their beloved comics. They want to see Frank Miller's SIN CITY, Frank Miller's 300.

ZACH SNYDER: Absolutely, absolutely. But I think the trick is... What we've done with 300, the connective tissue that a movie needs... that's the thing. The connective tissue has to be in the spirit of what was drawn. That's how you make the experience continue.

There you have it, squirts. That's it. Short, I know, but hopefully you have an inkling of what this guy will do. If WATCHMEN looks half as cool and gorgeous and breath-taking as the footage of 300 I saw today, then we're in for a classic.

Hope you enjoyed the chat! Back with more soon!!!

Funny how his vision differs from Greengrass's. He saw the movie more as a conspiracy theory thing, focusing more on the public's fears (Cold War/9-11) while Snyder seems more interested on the crime mistery side of it.

Anyway, I'm not sure what to make of his comments. On the one hand it seems like Tse's script was made without his involvment, and he makes it sound like it definitely won't be the shooting script. On the other hand, his comment on Hayter's. After what Moore said about it, what he says sounds a bit dubious. He makes it sound like he might use a few of Tse's new scenes on Hayter's draft. And all this talk about style... does he intend to shoot the whole movie in green screen?

 

[ToddIsDead]

I'm still not sure what to think of all this. i'm glad that it seems as though he isn't completely happy with Tse's script, but... I just don't know. I'll just wait and see how this develops.