• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Alan Moore's Watchmen

http://www.imdb.com/news/ns0000003/#ni0636440

Warner Bros. Loses Watchmen Suit
26 December 2008 1:33 AM, PST

Despite the fact that it has been more than ten years since Fox decided to abandon production based on the superheroes graphic novel Watchmen, a federal judge on Wednesday ruled that it continued to own a copyright interest in the project. He advised Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures, which took over production of the film and plans to release its own Watchmen movie on March 6, to negotiate a settlement with Fox or appeal his decision. It was unclear how the dispute might be settled, although the judge appeared to suggest a way in his opinion. "Fox owns a copyright interest consisting of, at the very least, the right to distribute the Watchmen motion picture," he said.

Looks like we will never get to see it at this rate... Yes, it's the new Corman Fantastic Four, everybody!
 
gncxx said:
http://www.imdb.com/news/ns0000003/#ni0636440

Warner Bros. Loses Watchmen Suit
26 December 2008 1:33 AM, PST

Despite the fact that it has been more than ten years since Fox decided to abandon production based on the superheroes graphic novel Watchmen, a federal judge on Wednesday ruled that it continued to own a copyright interest in the project. He advised Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures, which took over production of the film and plans to release its own Watchmen movie on March 6, to negotiate a settlement with Fox or appeal his decision. It was unclear how the dispute might be settled, although the judge appeared to suggest a way in his opinion. "Fox owns a copyright interest consisting of, at the very least, the right to distribute the Watchmen motion picture," he said.

Looks like we will never get to see it at this rate... Yes, it's the new Corman Fantastic Four, everybody!

i dont get this fox lost the rights long ago and it look like fox are just jealous that Warner Bros got the rights to Watchmen and it fox fault for siting on the rights to Watchmen for that long and doin nothing with it.
 
megadeth16 said:
i dont get this fox lost the rights long ago and it look like fox are just jealous that Warner Bros got the rights to Watchmen and it fox fault for siting on the rights to Watchmen for that long and doin nothing with it.

I don't think they were doing nothing with it, it's just that they couldn't get the project off the ground. Still, it smacks of opportunism that now Warners look like they have a hit on their hands, Fox are determined to muscle in to stop it happening. Warners are defiant, though.
 
sherbetbizarre said:
sjp4_1.jpg

Hai! :)
 
Warner Brothers and Fox Peacefully Settle Over Watchmen!
January 15, 2009

It all began on August 18th and finally came to a conclusion today, January 15th. Warner Brothers and Fox have settled over the Watchmen legal case that reached its pinnacle on Christmas Eve when Judge Gary A. Feess stated that Fox "owns a copyright interest consisting of, at the very least, the right to distribute." After meeting for weeks, the two movie studios have settled and Warner Brothers will still be releasing the film on March 6th as planned. Fox will receive a "sizable cash payment" as well as a percentage of the film's box office take. Fox will not be a co-distributor nor will it own a piece of the Watchmen property.

Thankfully this legal battle has ended peacefully and all the fans will get to see Watchmen on March 6th as planned. We were always hoping all along that this would end this way and I'm glad that it did. As much as I could argue about Fox getting money that they don't deserve, at this point it's great to see it end up this way. I think more than anything, producer Lloyd Levin made the most important statement regarding this legal battle and I the most I can do is point you towards that letter yet again. It's time to forget about the legalities and just get ready to enjoy Watchmen in just over 50 more days! Rejoice geeks, it's coming!

LINK
 
Must Watch: An NBS Retrospective, 10 Years of Dr. Manhattan
January 21, 2009

Now that Warner Brothers is still bringing Watchmen out on March 6th, their viral marketing is kicking off in big ways. We previously revealed the details on the website TheNewFrontiersman.net before, but starting tomorrow they'll launch an extremely awesome, astonishingly geeky viral video of a 1970 NBS Nightly News report looking back at the then 10 year lifespan of Dr. Manhattan. Thankfully the video has showed up early (possibbly planned?) on YouTube and can be seen before. As everyone knows, I love viral marketing, so this just something cool to mention. Only 44 more days until Watchmen!

Watch the NBS Nightly News on Dr. Manhattan
 
Saw it on IMAX last night. Casting was wonderful. The film itself was as close as you'd ever get to the comics. sure they changed some stuff around, but it didnt impact on the message. Every panel you remember from the comic is almost certainly there. 7.5/10
 
Thanks for the report ...

But I'm curious about your summary rating of '7.5 / 10'. Are you a very strict evaluator for whom a '7.5' reflects the high praise of your other comments, or were there some points that made you 'deduct' 25% from a perfect score?

Just wondering ...
 
Yes, it was full of images lifted straight out of the book, and the actors themselves were pretty much identical. Ozymandias' costume was different, though. Rorschach was magnificent. His voice wasn't what I was expecting - I was expecting something dull, flat and monotonous. It's not exactly animated, but it's not what I was expecting. But quite soon after he started, it got that I couldn't imagine him any other way.

The first 90 minutes are going to be pretty hard going for people who haven't read the book, I think. 'Imself found it far too angsty. The second half perks things up.

"Tall order" Heeheheheheheheh :lol:

Still, it's not V-Lite, and it's light-years away from the crap that was League and From Hell. It's actually not bad at all. In fact, it's quite good. Okay, it will drag, and it is slow, and the whole bit about the Black Freighter is missing, but it's not a bad attempt. Considering it's an unfilmable book, it's not a bad fist of it.
 
They made a perfectly workable movie. Visually, it does a good job. Casting was spot on. And didn't ruin the story.

Everyone's already aware of : 1) changed ending , 2) no pirates .

After seeing it, I commented to my wife that not having the counter-point of the Black Frigate story, you don't really emphasize the feeling of the inescapable downward spiral to doom. But then, at 164 minutes, it's already long enough.

That, and we've raised a whole generation since the end of the Cold War. It's just an alien mindset today.
 
Apparently there are 4 cuts of the film that are available. The Director's Cut, which goes for quite a while, the second cut - which they wanted to use as the cinematic cut but the company made them shorten the film some more, which resulted in the cut we see at the movies, and eventually there will be an extended edition - which I'm dying to see.

My fiance and best friend thought it was pretty good, and I've met a few people who hated it, but they hadn't known the story beforehand. Personally, I loved it.
 
Warner Bros. should make their money back on it, eventually. I feel a bit guilty about seeing it, because of Alan Moore not wanting his name on it, or the money he's obviously owed, so much of his script is still there.

I've had my much thumbed, battered and worn, copy of Watchmen for over 20 years, sometimes, watching the movie, I knew exactly what Dr Manhattan meant, about the time dilation effect, experiencing, past, present and future, all at the same time. So close was the storyboarded comic, to the original movie. Scene for scene, word for word and image for image. Sometimes in overly loving, slo-mo detail.

They have changed the ending. It does make slightly less sense than the purposely, mind-blowingly outrageous, original version. After all, the original version was something which, Lovecraft-like, exposed the inner workings of Veidt's brain. The original monster from the id. However, there is a short over-view scene, of the Manhattan 'ground zero', as Veidt Industries airships fly overhead.

It's truly graphically violent, I'm glad I decided not to sneak my 14yr old into see it (a '16' certification, here in Nederland), when he begged me. There's a good reason why Dave Gibbon's excellent, original, artwork, recreates a simpler, comic book, graphic style, a distancing effect, which exposes the violence at the dark heart of the tale, without verging on the pornographic. Snyder, dwells just a bit too long at times, on the gobbets of bloody flesh and such. Everyone's twittering on about a few scenes where Dr Manhattan flashes his cock (funny, I always thought that he was a nice Jewish boy) and the sex scenes, that just shows how screwed the average cinema-goer's sensibilities have become, since crap like Hostel and Saw, IMHO.

The most glaring omission is the lack of ordinary human back-story, to counter the larger than life perversity of the masked heroes and to underline the true enormity of the horror at the climax. The sub-plot, between the psychiatrist, Dr Long and Kovacs, is compressed into one short shocker of a meeting, which almost, but not quite, destroys the true tragedy of the meeting. I wanted something of the story of Long and his wife, the newspaper vendor and the little boy reading the pirate comic. All the stuff that weaves together to make an ultimate horrible sense of the tragedy at the climax.

I'm curious to see the extended version. Better as a TV mini-series? Definitely.

However, it looked the goods, I could hardly fault the actors, they are all great in their roles and I did still come away with some sense of Moore and Gibbons' original. Much more satisfyingly adult than 'Batman: The Dark Knight'.

I'd go with 7.5 out of 10, too.

Edit: Spelling. Also, Snyder, not Zyder!
 
I was quite pleasantly surprised by how good & faithful it actually was. Even the changed ending made sense for the film, though the alien squid still works better for the comic.

Snyder clearly has talent though I'm still sad we never got to see Paul Greengrass make Watchmen, that could have been a very interesting piece of work.
 
EnolaGaia said:
Thanks for the report ...

But I'm curious about your summary rating of '7.5 / 10'. Are you a very strict evaluator for whom a '7.5' reflects the high praise of your other comments, or were there some points that made you 'deduct' 25% from a perfect score?

Just wondering ...

slightly arbitary i agree but felt it shows i liked the movie without it being a near perfect 8.5-9 a la Good Will Hunting, or 10 for something that is cinema-defining like Shawshank or Andrei Rublev. It is only a comic book adaptation after all:)
 
I loved it, I'm going to watch it again. Pretty dense! Also, Hallelujah provided the funniest sex scene I've ever seen in my life.

Anyway, I think it made a really successful bash of things. A very ambitious film, but one that really worked out.
 
Yeah, that was the point at which I was glad my little brother had declined to come with us ;)
 
Actually, I thought the sex scene was one of the things that could have been cut. Way too long. Sometimes less is more. Even if there's hawt nekkid chix involved.
 
Considering the way that great, steaming, bloody, gobbets of tortured human flesh fly about the screen (sometimes in lovingly photographed slo-mo), I thought that the sex scenes were pretty tame.

People are offended by the strangest things, nowadays. :hmm:
 
It wasn't at all offensive or obscene, just very very silly.
 
Warner Bros. should make their money back on it, eventually. I feel a bit guilty about seeing it, because of Alan Moore not wanting his name on it, or the money he's obviously owed, so much of his script is still there.

I don't think any adaptation of his work would suit Moore though; he always disowns films based on his graphic novels. V for Vendetta was an excellent film IMO, and better for the fact that it had been updated for the War on Terror; following the original novel to the letter would have made it less relevant and, frankly, dated.

That said I haven't seen Watchmen yet but am looking forward to doing so. It seems to have had rather mixed reviews, but I'll approach it with an open mind.
 
H_James said:
It wasn't at all offensive or obscene, just very very silly.
Wait till you get to the age where you realise that it's all very very silly! :lol:
 
I didn't think it was silly, just tedious, really. And I don't normally find sex tedious.
 
Pietro_Mercurios said:
Considering the way that great, steaming, bloody, gobbets of tortured human flesh fly about the screen (sometimes in lovingly photographed slo-mo), I thought that the sex scenes were pretty tame.

People are offended by the strangest things, nowadays. :hmm:

Not offended, just find it awkward to watch sex scenes with my little brother. ;)
 
All I can say is that it wasn't the sex scenes, or the nudity, that had me flinching.
 
Saw the film the other day and liked it. Considering both the density and difficulty of the source material, I think everyone involved did the best they could to bring it to the screen in a workable form. Must say though, I'm a bit mystified why the back-story of Rorshach's mask wasn't even hinted at, as it would have been a handy insight to those not familiar with the comics/graphic novel. Likewise, Ozymandias' cat wasn't really explained, though this wasn't all that essential.

For me, the standout character wasn't Rorshach - who I felt lost something in his translation to the big screen - but Dr Manhattan. Even more than the comic book, I got the sense of someone really having to deal with being a god. And his voice was spot on. Calm, distant, human and yet not. It was just perfect.

Glad to see that the annoying and distracting Black Freighter bit was left out, just as it should have been in the book. Don't get me wrong, Watchmen is an excellent piece of work, but it has its flaws - most notably that Alan Moore spoiled the cake a bit by being too eager to chuck in as many ingredients as he could, instead of doing the proper and writerly thing of seeing what he could take out of the nearly-finished product. A darkly poetic metaphor to the main storyline it may have been (apparently!), but why use two stories to make the same point when one was already doing the job just fine?
 
Would you say that those people who like to read the newspaper and magazine clippings at the end of each chapter prefer the Black Freighter stuff? I must admit I devoured the lot when I first read it.
 
I did.

Reminded me of the Ripping Yarns in the Beano

But more visceral horror
 
Back
Top