...Snyder spent a few hours [last Thursday] afternoon both talking about and presenting footage from the project that's been dominating not only his but many a fanboy's dreams for the past few months - "Watchmen".
Already presented in Los Angeles and New York earlier in the month, the half-hour preview consisted of three separate segments with material ranging from the extraordinary to the interesting - there's no doubt the ambitious film promises a very loyal adaptation of Alan Moore's definitive graphic novel.
For those unfamiliar with the property, the comic is set in an alternate 1985 America in which costumed superheroes (only one of which has real superpowers) are part of the fabric of everyday society and the US-Soviet Cold War is closer than ever to an all-out nuclear Armageddon. When one of his former colleagues named The Comedian is murdered, the washed-up vigilante Rorschach sets out to uncover a plot to kill and discredit all past and present superheroes. As he reconnects with his former crime-fighting legion, he glimpses a wide-ranging and disturbing conspiracy with links to their shared past and catastrophic consequences for the future.
...What's the final runtime?
"I'm hoping 2 hours 42 minutes, with credits."
That theatrical version however is just one of three versions of the film planned for the eventual DVD & Blu-ray release. There's also a three hour director's cut of the film with "the scenes all fleshed out", and the 'Black Freighter' version which will combine that Director's Cut with the 'Black Freighter' short film that will clock in at three-and-a-half hours. How the Black Freighter version will be incorporated and packaged is still undecided...
"For me 'Black Freighter' needs its own box, it's packaged with like cool props from the movie and supplemental material. It's like this big thing you put on your shelf and go 'that's f**king Black Freighter' you know."
The two action scenes shown in the footage he says are among the very few action sequences in the film. The Comedian fight, originally just three panels in the comic, was extended in the film for character reasons - "I wanted to show what he's capable of...he doesn't really even touch his attacker once, but you see that if he was against a normal guy he could beat the crap out of him". His favorite scene is the inter cutting of Dr. Manhattan's interview and Nite-Owl's brutal alley fight which he's made very intense and graphic - "the point is to show consequence - the first punch the guy gets a compound fracture of the arm, blood sprays and you go 'woooh this is not a comic book movie'."
WARNING: If you choose to read the full feature at the DH site BEWARE SPOILERS...
And let's hope that the pesky lawsuit gets resolved before the release date...
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