The Times’ Michael Moran reports in his regular Blockbuster Buzz column on a recent Q&A with Dave Gibbons he attended at the BFI. Dave was there principally to talk about his forthcoming book Watching the Watchmen, which is due this autumn in both a regular hardcover and a Previews exclusive edition, but of course the discussion also turned to the film version, with Dave confirming he had seen a nearly 3-hour very rough cut of the film which he described as “very sexy, very violent.” Michael also comments that there was a special treat for those assembled when a ten minute ‘super trailer’ from the film, complete with an orchestral score, was shown, which he described thus: “On the big screen the action is a colossal adrenalin rush and level of attention to detail is breathtaking.” Its all a huge tease to get us all excited for something not due for months and months of course. And its working.
August 19th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
I was at that screening and Q&A.
A few things:
The trailer we saw was very good indeed. Much of it was footage from trailer that’s already online, but there were some added moments and much more appropriate music than the Smashing Pumpkins. What’s pleasing is that panels from the graphic novel were very recognisable and faithfully recreated on screen. The black marks on Rorscach’s mask are constantly in motion when he’s on screen. The footage we saw was nowhere near 10 minutes long though.
Moran says “The Comedian’s Vietnam Diary and Rorschach’s Journal were both floated as possibilities by clueless studio execs”, but that’s wrong. Those ideas were proposed by DC execs and shot down by Moore and Gibbons back when the Watchmen comic had finished. Gibbons made this pretty clear – he just said that some movie producer had probably thought about franchise potential but he hadn’t heard anything about it.
Someone quizzed Gibbons on the ending, and he said that he couldn’t go into specifics but ‘the structure, the meaning and the amibiguity are all still there’.
August 19th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Dan, thanks for the update, always good to get first hand accounts of these gigs, thank you. My own Watchmen spinoff where Jon actually becomes a watch repairer and so never has his accident but simply fixes old watches for five decades was, sadly, never taken up either, despite an obvious gap in the horological themed comics market.