Wizard’s got an interesting interview up with Zack Snyder, director of Dawn of the Dead, 300, and the upcoming Watchmen, a line-up of films that were he to die after completing movie #3 would make him the nerd-director equivalent of John Cazale (whose C.V. consisted solely of The Godfather, The Conversation, The Godfather Part II, Dog Day Afternoon, and The Deer Hunter). It focuses primarily on his relationship with Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons, with whom he’s collaborating on promotional, conceptual, and storyboard art. Snyder reveals that he himself is actually drawing many of the film’s storyboards (the ones that aren’t straight lifts from the comic).
I think it was only this past week that I realized how cool it would be if they make a good movie out of this book.
The more I read about this, the less convinced I am that it will suck. If only Alan Moore weren’t such an ass.
I don’t blame Moore at all for feeling the way he does about Hollywood. Or Watchmen’s publisher for that matter. But I too think it will not suck. I really liked Dawn of the Dead and 300 a lot, so I have not much reason to think it WOULD suck, unless I were to subscribe to the Terry Gilliam “it’s unfilmable” school of thought, which I don’t. If they can make masterpieces out of something as unfilmable as The Lord of the Rings, they can swing Watchmen.
I used to think Moore was righteous about all that stuff, but it’s become a pattern. Maybe it’s you, dude?
Snyder’s good, the cast looks good, they’ve got Gibbons on board… sweet.
Also: Carla Gugino.
A non-trivial plus, indubitably.
I’ve gradually come to the conclusion that Moore doesn’t actually get how mainstream/Hollywood film and TV works. I find this odd in someone who so clearly does get how several related visual styles work, but the pacing of motion, composing for theater and TV screen, and other aspects of the media just don’t seem to register on him as things that would affect narrative and such. It seems like Gibbons is a lot more tuned into how movies work.