Zack Snyder: Watchmen
By Fred Topel
Mar 5, 2009
For most moviegoers, Watchmen is just some big movie. To fans of the graphic novel, it's a highly anticipated event, with a behind-the-scenes backstory that's almost as dramatic as the one told on-screen.
It has taken more than 20 years to get a film version made. Filmmakers as well-established as producer Joel Silver and director Paul Greengrass have attempted the feat only to find their efforts frustrated. Many considered the property unfilmable.
Zack Snyder is the one to finally get it done. He became attached to the film before 300 hit theaters. Now the studio is proud to advertise "From the director of 300." However, the filmmaker, who has battled with Spartans, didn't get an easy ride. A lawsuit from rival studio Fox, who was involved in early development, almost blocked the release of the Warner Bros. film, though an undisclosed settlement restored that.
Watchmen was comic scribe Alan Moore's alternative take on superheroes, which was illustrated by Dave Gibbons. In their world, where costumed avengers and energy gods exist, America won Vietnam and Richard Nixon remained president through the 1980s. The film remains a cold war tale in this skewed period of history.
Snyder walked us through his interpretation of the film, which includes a montage of alternate historical events set to Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are a Changin'."
Qestion: How does it feel to be the guy who finally got Watchmen made?
Zack Snyder: I don't really have the history with it. I feel like it's an achievement just in the last three years of my life. Like it's cool to have built this thing, so that part does feel really good, and it feels good to finally now let it loose on the world a little bit. So I'm proud of that. Then when you do look at it from the historical standpoint, [producers] Lloyd [Levin] and Larry [Gordon]'s experience being 20 years of trying to get this movie made, that's pretty amazing too.
Q:
Did you know your opening credits sequence would be something really special?
ZS:
I mean, I didn't know how it would stand out in the world but I knew that I wanted to make it. I got excited about it when I was drawing it. It was fun to do and think about, just musically and all that. It's one of those things when you're doing it, you're like, "Okay, this can be cool."
Q:
How many of the opening images are from the comic book and where did you add your own?
ZS:
It's about fifty/fifty -- fifty from the comic book and fifty from the text, and a couple from just things I thought would be interesting. Like for instance, Adrian [Veidt, played by Matthew Goode] outside of Studio 54, that image to me does a lot of stuff. Even though it's a kind of ridiculous shot, it's still great to me because just the idea that you put it in the context of superhero and everyone's like, "Well, superheroes are ridiculous because they dress up in costumes and no one would ever [do that]. That's not normal." Then you look at him in the context of Studio 54, everyone's dressed up in a costume. He's not that ridiculous within the context of David Bowie and the Village People. Suddenly he has cultural context. He fits into some weird pop culture kind of vernacular that I find kind of fun.
Q:
How did you choose music to exemplify the era?
ZS:
It was funny because when I drew the movie, I pretty much had just this iPod playlist that I put together of music that I felt like inspired me, felt Watchmen-y to me, whatever that means. I would just have my headphones on and I'd be drawing and had my script, my comic book and this weird, amorphous world of music and pictures and words and stuff. I just kind of went into that cocoon and just drew. Almost every song from my playlist is basically the soundtrack for the movie, so that stuff made it through.
Q:
Was there a ratings issue for showing Dr. Manhattan naked?
ZS:
No, we didn't like get an NC-17 or anything. I was wondering if we would -- like how much nudity can you show before you get an NC-17? I didn't know but we didn't cross that line, I think partly because he's CG too. For whatever reason, that's easier than just a naked guy standing there.
Q:
Being blue makes it okay then?
ZS:
I guess so.
Q:
We know you like slow motion. Is that to make you focus more on the composition of the frame like you would in a comic book panel?
ZS:
It is. I restrained myself from slow motion in this movie I think. Look, I love fight choreography and I like to see the human form in motion. It's a thing that I enjoy. So it's difficult for me to sort of separate [myself from it]. I did do that big slow motion shot of Jeffrey [Dean Morgan] getting punched at the beginning but that was partly because I knew I was going to revisit it when Rorschach [Jackie Earle Haley]'s at the grave. That would be the kind of slow motion vignette sequence of The Comedian [Morgan] doing wrong or wrong being done to him. So I kind of needed that moment so I could put it later. That was really my slow motion philosophy for the movie.
Q:
When the lawsuit happened, were you worried or was it someone else's problem?
ZS:
Well, I kind of treated it like it was someone else's problem. Then it looked like it got a little hairy, like maybe it would be a bigger issue. Then cooler heads prevailed, thank God. Really it had very little to do with me. They would just keep me informed what was happening. No one ever asked me to testify or anything like that.
Q:
But when you hear that it's just some red tape snafu that someone forgot to clear before you got started on all this work...
ZS:
Yeah, that's difficult. I was prepared for the movie to be locked away in a vault for all time.
Q:
What did you want to bring to the film world of Watchmen?
ZS:
I guess in making the movie, really the point of view of the graphic novel, sort of the essence, the feeling of Watchmen which is the indescribable, impossible, the smell, the texture, the tone. That was the thing that I felt like I wanted people to feel in the movie. That was the hardest part too in a lot of ways, was just to get that feeling, that Watchmen feeling from the movie. I know that sounds like bullshit but it's the thing that I also like the most in the movie.
Q:
How do you follow Watchmen?
ZS:
It's difficult. Someone was like, "What comic book movie are you going to do next?" I'm like yeah, I don't think I'm doing another comic book. What am I going to do, Archie and Jughead? What's the follow up?
Q:
In slow motion.
ZS:
Yeah, it's like fwoosh, [army flying], R rated. I'm doing Guardians of Ga'Hoole, which is a kids movie...Then I'm working on Sucker Punch for the fall. Sucker Punch is an original thing that I wrote so I kind of feel like I've had enough George Romero, Frank Miller, Alan Moore. If I pick another, I'm going to have to do like Catcher in the Rye next. I don't know what the cultural equivalent is to Watchmen. It's difficult.
Q:
What do you want "A Zack Snyder Film" to mean?
ZS:
I don't know. The truth is I never really thought about it like that..My favorite movies are movies that have personality, you feel the personality of the director. Though I would say the best way to do that is not really think about it too hard. The advice I always give to people who are like, "I want to be a director. What should I do?" I'm like, "Well, just be yourself. You can't copy someone else and you don't want to be just like a journeyman filmmaker. What is that original thing that you feel, your point of view?"
Q:
Do you expect to have a really different style for the kids' movie?
ZS:
It's pretty much like A Zack Snyder..., whatever that means. It's a little violent but it's not too bad.
Q:
A little scary, like the best kids movies always are?
ZS:
Yeah, I think so. It's definitely a little scary. It's pretty hardcore I think in a cool way, I think for kids. In the same way that the second Harry Potter movie or Fantasia is scary I think. I mean, Coraline, have you seen Coraline? It's pretty cool. I think that's pretty great.
Watchmen opens in theaters nationwide on Friday March 6.
Watchmen opens in theaters nationwide on Friday March 6.
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