Comic book geeks the world over, prepare for a sweat-pants shame boner: Director Zack Snyder (300, Dawn of the Dead) is bringing Alan Moore’s 1986 graphic novel, Watchmen, to the big screen.
Going against the wishes of the reclusive writer, who has been famously anti-Hollywood and declared he doesn’t want a Watchman movie made, Snyder has started work on the film.
"With Watchmen, there's no reason not to [embrace it]," the director tells MTV. “The audience is ready for it. Who's not sick of Hollywood's version of a superhero?”
Watchmen is set in an alternative version of 1985, in which the world is on the brink of nuclear annihilation and superheroes have been outlawed. A mysterious enemy emerges to take out a band of ex-crime-fighters, and the group embarks on a desperate mission to uncover the conspiracy. The film will take a new spin on the superhero movie, including political, pop-culture and real-life references that are often lacking in comic genre.
"[In] so many comic books, everything [has an] exaggerated, forced perspective to make it look cooler. Frank [Miller, writer of Sin City] is just saying, 'This is how I see it,' " Snyder tells MTV. "The thing with Alan is that people have not given his books the same respect that Frank got from that initial experience with Robert [Rodriguez on Sin City]. That is the missing ingredient. Alan's stories, in their own way, are sophisticated; they speak to political things and pop culture and a whole bunch of real issues we all confront. ... Those parts of Alan's books are what studios aren't really comfortable with."
Cameras will start rolling on the project this summer.
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