Watchmen, one of the seminal comic books of the modern era, is being brought to the screen in exactly one year from today on March 6th, 2009 by director Zack Snyder (300). To mark the one year milestone Snyder has posted on his Watchmen production blog a sneak peek at five Watchmen characters. (link) If the movie sticks anywhere close to the comics this should turn into a huge 300 size movie event next year. Watchmen stars Malin Akerman as Laurie Juspeczyk (Silk Spectre), Billy Crudup as Jon Osterman (Dr. Manhattan), Matthew Goode as Adrian Veidt (Ozymandias), Jackie Earle Haley as Walter Kovacs (Rorschach), Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Edward Blake (The Comedian) and Patrick Wilson as Dan Dreiberg (Nite Owl).
Watchmen, written by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, was a twelve issue comic book maxi-series published by DC Comics in 1986-87. While published by DC comics, Watchmen was set outside of its comic universe in a more realistic setting. While this is probably too much information for many of you, Moore was originally set to use characters from Charlton Comics, a rival comic book company DC had recently purchased and had no plans for their characters. Once DC determined it wanted to integrate the Charlton Comics characters (Blue Beetle, The Question, Captain Atom) into their own universe, Moore was forced to create new characters but based them closely to the original Charlton heroes (Nite Owl, Rorschach, Dr. Manhattan respectively).
After completion Watchmen was later re-released as a trade paperback and became on of the first really popular trade paperbacks christened a "graphic novel." You all know how I feel about the term graphic novel, and while the Watchmen movie will be referred to many times by the media as “based on a graphic novel,” please be aware when the book was first published it was just a lowly comic book like all the rest. Although I can see why they won’t want to refer to it as “based on a comic book” since it is definitely not your typical super hero story. It is one of the best crafted stories I’ve ever read and has won numerous awards including the 1988 Hugo Award and is listed on Time Magazine’s list of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present. (link) If you can’t tell already Watchmen is one of the The Blot’s all time favorite comics and I’m extremely excited for the movie. Thanks to News-a-rama.com for the heads up on this!
