If You Haven't Read It Yet

The Watchmen trailer at Batman inspired me to pick the book up for another read. If you've never read it, you'll definitely want to before the movie comes out next spring. Some choice selections from Entertainment Weekly's cover article about it:

"In my movie, Superman doesn't care about humanity, Batman can't get it up, and the bad guy wants world peace," Snyder says with a smirk. "Will Watchmen be the end of superhero movies? Probably not. But it sure will kick them in the gut."

----------

The movie is no kid-safe funny-book flick. It's an R-rated, $100 million adaptation of the smartest, most subversive superhero story ever created. Published by DC Comics in 1986 and routinely hailed by even mainstream critics as a literary masterpiece, Watchmen is many things — a jittery expression of Cold War anxiety, a chilling meditation on human nature, an intricate murder mystery. But at its heart this sexy, violent, and politically charged 12-issue saga, written by Alan Moore (click to see our Q&A with him) and drawn by Dave Gibbons, is an epic love letter to colorfully clad superpeople and a wicked satire about them.

----------

Snyder remembers screening some Watchmen footage for an unnamed studio executive. Afterward, Snyder says, the exec turned to him and said, "This makes Superman look stupid."

----------

Oscar nominee Jackie Earle Haley (Little Children) campaigned for the role of Rorschach — the comic's most popular character, despite his sociopathic, sadistic vigilantism . . .

. . . some of the actors struggled with fleshing out their complex, often corrupt characters.

----------

Snyder hopes the fanboys understand that even with these changes, no other version of the film that preceded him dared to be this faithful. And as he spends the next eight months slicing and fine-tuning, he prays his fellow Watchmenphiles will cut him a little slack. "They have a chance to support something that I think legitimizes the superhero-movie genre for everyone who says superhero movies are stupid, popcorn bulls---," he says. "Hopefully, Watchmen can get in their faces and change their minds."