I Watched The Watchmen

Yes I saw Watchmen this weekend.
And despite the negative reviews I have read, I really liked it.
Usually I dont know if I love a movie till I see it a few times.
And I'll probably watch it again.

It's not over the top action, although there are some REALLY good action sequences.
What impressed me the most was the storyline and the way the actors played off each other.
I didnt see a weak performance.
The movie didnt drag at all for me.
One of the big "Kiss of Death" moments in a movie is if I look at my watch and go " Geez...still another hour left?"
In this one I glanced at my watch and went "Geez...an hour has gone by already?"

Watchmen did well in it's opening weekend, pulling in a three-day total of $55.7 million.
It also pulled in $27.5 million overseas giving it a total overall worldwide gross to $83.2 million.

As far as it being almost frame by frame with the book....
So what?
Look at "Wanted".
It was Wanted in name only.
This IS the Watchmen brought to life.

One word of warning though, please...PLEASE do not even try to make a sequel.
I know how Hollywood is.
This is a one shot stand alone movie.

Watchmen Judge to Rule in Favor of Fox

I'm in the "just shaking my head" mode now that I found this article at Wired......

Christmas Bombshell: Watchmen Judge to Rule in Favor of Fox
By John Scott Lewinski
If the lawyers at 20th Century Fox really wanted to kill Watchmen when they filed a copyright claim against the Warner Bros. production, they got the perfect ammunition as a Christmas gift Wednesday from a federal judge in Los Angeles.
The New York Times is reporting that U.S. District Court Judge Gary A. Feess will soon rule in favor of Fox -- granting the studio a copyright claim to the movie franchise, which had been in development at several Hollywood studios over the years before Warner Bros. finally got the job done with director Zack Snyder.
http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2008/12/christmas-bombs.html

I read awhile back about a possible boycott of Fox if this action goes through. And yeah I may be small potatoes here compaired to the big Comic sites, but I'm ready to jump onto that bandwagon with them.
I'm really looking forward to this movie and I would hate to see some petty legal action like this stop it's release.

According to the L.A. Times, the release date might just get pushed back.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2008/12/watchmen-ruling.html

Of course Warner could always settle.....
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003925125&imw=Y

But one thing Fox needs to realize. The people that they are ticking off here are the notorious "fanboys" (And I don't use that term in a derogatory fashion).
They were raised on and embrace the idea of fighting against what they conceive as evil.
In the old days it was bad guys with guns, but now the bad guys hide behind governments and corporations.

Watchmen, part 6

Some very cool posters for the upcoming Watchmen movie, this one featuring the Comedian.

Watchmen, part 4

Silk Spectre is the name shared by a mother and daughter fictional superheroine pair who are central characters in the Watchmen.
They are often said to be modified versions of the character Nightshade from Charlton Comics; however, Alan Moore has stated that he found Nightshade "boring," and that Silk Spectre was modeled on characters such as the Phantom Lady and Black Canary.
Malin Åkerman and Carla Gugino will be portraying Laurie Juspeczyk and Sally Jupiter respectively in the upcoming film.

Malin Åkerman

Carla Gugino

Watchmen, part 3

Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Grey's Anatomy, Supernatural) will portray The Comedian (Edward Morgan Blake) in the Watchmen film.
The character is loosely based on G. Gordon Liddy.
His alter-ego, Edward Blake is a play on the name of movie director Blake Edwards. The character design is said to have been based on actor Burt Reynolds.

Watchmen

Watchmen is a film adaptation of Alan Moore's twelve-issue Hugo Award-winning comic book Watchmen. The adaptation is directed by Zack Snyder, who helmed 300.

On June 23, 2006, Warner Bros. announced that Zack Snyder would direct Watchmen with Alex Tse attached to write the script. The director previously filmed 300, a Warner Bros. adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel 300.

Alex Tse wrote a new script that drew the best elements from two of David Hayter's previous drafts in the new script. The script did not keep the contemporary atmosphere that Hayter created, but instead returned to the original Cold War setting of the Watchmen comic. Snyder said that Warner Bros. was agreeable to the 1980's script that had been turned in. In the script, the director had also added a title montage sequence to introduce the events of alternate history United States in that time period to the audience. "The Black Freighter", a comic within the Watchmen comic, was included in the script, but the director said that he did not know if the potential narrative device for the story would make it into the film.

Snyder said of his plans for filming Watchmen: "There are so many easter eggs in the frames (of the comic) so you want that level of detail in the movie itself." The director said that he planned to use a combination of sets and green screens. The scenes that take place on Mars, Antarctica, and in "The Black Freighter" would require green screens, while the rest of the film would take place on sets. Snyder said that he hoped to speak to Watchmen author Alan Moore before filming, though Moore had sworn off involvement with film or television productions after his disagreement with the V for Vendetta film adaptation.

In November 2006, Zack Snyder said that he planned to begin working on Watchmen right after completing 300. Snyder explained that the "The Black Freighter" was written into the script in a way that the story could be left out if necessary and not affect the rest of the film. The director hoped to include scenes of "The Black Freighter" on the Watchmen DVD release if the studio decided to leave out the story due to time constraints. "I'm totally fine with that, but I feel like that's a battle I haven't lost yet, so I'm not going to concede to it yet," Snyder said. Snyder hopes to begin production in spring 2007.

In December 2006, comic book artists Adam Hughes and John Cassaday were confirmed to work on character and costume design for Watchmen.

In an interview with Variety's Danny Graydon, Watchmen writer Alan Moore adamantly opposed a film adaptation of his comic book, arguing, "You get people saying, 'Oh, yes, Watchmen is very cinematic, when actually it's not. It's almost the exact opposite of cinematic." Moore said that Terry Gilliam, preparing to direct Watchmen for Warner Bros. at the time, had asked Moore how the writer would film it. Moore told Graydon about his response, "I had to tell him that, frankly, I didn't think it was filmable. I didn't design it to show off the similarities between cinema and comics, which are there, but in my opinion are fairly unremarkable. It was designed to show off the things that comics could do that cinema and literature couldn't."

Moore also told Entertainment Weekly in December 2001, "With a comic, you can take as much time as you want in absorbing that background detail, noticing little things that we might have planted there. You can also flip back a few pages relatively easily to see where a certain image connects with a line of dialogue from a few pages ago. But in a film, by the nature of the medium, you're being dragged through it at 24 frames per second." Moore had opposed the adaptation of Watchmen from the beginning, intending to give any resulting film royalties to Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons. According to Moore, Hayter's script "was as close as [he] could imagine anyone getting to Watchmen". However, Moore added, "I shan't be going to see it. My book is a comic book. Not a movie, not a novel. A comic book. It's been made in a certain way, and designed to be read a certain way: in an armchair, nice and cozy next to a fire, with a steaming cup of coffee."

In an early interview with Entertainment Weekly's Ken Tucker, Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons said that he thought the time had passed to make a Watchmen movie. At the time, Darren Aronofsky was expressing interest in directing the film under Paramount Pictures. Nevertheless, Gibbons said, "It was most likely to happen when Batman was a big success, but then that window was lost." Gibbons also told Neon, "In a way, I'm glad because it wouldn't have been up to the book."