Superhero Filmmakers: Where's Our Watchmen?

That is how ladies like them.

s'all love forks, this thread just needed more hyperbolic posturing to keep the tone up.

just that the McFarlane/Eclipse story is FOURTEEN-YEAR OLD NEWS at this point and has been maaad hashed out in press, speculation, and a LOT in court. basically what he bought was a) the trademarked magazine titles Alien Worlds and Terror Tales and such, and b) fuck all else. He plainly had no idea what he was buying except that he hoped Miracleman would be involved; at one point in legal posturings his people claimed that they hadn't even got all the Miracleman film in the deal and what they had was too damaged to use - Neil Gaiman read this, went into his basement and opened the boxes they'd sent him and discovered almost all the series in completely usable shape.

(once he realised he didn't own shit, he spent yeeears bartering with Gaiman to exchange the IMAGINARY rights he'd not really bought for the genuine contractual rights Gaiman had in Spawn characters. when a court finally said "cut it out you dipshit, pay the man," he declared bankruptcy and carried on doing business as before without paying up.)

The Spirit movie is so wrong there's nothing at all to say about it, except to weep that such a long-standing respectable creator-defending publisher as Denis Kitchen should end up spending the entire second half of his life actively fucking up the legacy of his two deceased clients.

Scott Pilgrim? Really?

"Edgar Wright's making a Scott Pilgrim movie" was announced a couple of years ago, I think - around the time book 3 was published.

The eclipse story is news to me; I woulda been in college and somewhat unplugged from comics gossip at the time. So bear with me: "they hadn't even got all the Miracleman film in the deal and what they had was too damaged to use - Neil Gaiman read this, went into his basement and opened the boxes they'd sent him and discovered almost all the series in completely usable shape." <-- This suggests that there was film in the can on this project? What became of it?

As far as the Spirit goes, as much as it offends me, my inclination is to think Eisner would've been distraught by the outcome of the character. He was a businessman in much the same way Ray Charles was; I think he'd be happy to know his character would become a tentpole movie regardless of the dumbassedness of the final cut. Then again, I never read the Eisner and Miller interview book, so I'm not sure if they saw eye to eye. In the long run, it'll likely attract new fans to the archives and to Eisner's real legacy which can only be a good thing. Fuck if I plan on seeing it tho'.

sorry, "would NOT have been distraught by the outcome of the character"

enjoying all this watchmen talk

thot the preview looked great

This suggests that there was film in the can on this project? What became of it?

It's still in Gaiman's basement (or possibly a safe archival facility now), as the rights are still a clusterfuck. Film = printer's negatives.

so I'm not sure if they saw eye to eye

ha ha, no.

Y'all saw the Sally Jupiter WWII bomber/pin-up art, right?

Ï remember Gaiman mentioning in some intervíew back in the 90's that he was gonna do a movie based on Death: The High Cost of Living, I wonder what happened to that? I always liked that comic, and it's self-contained enough for a proper movie adaptation.

That's still on, Guillermo Del Toro is producing.

what pie does that man not have a finger in these days

gordo, are you on some access hollywood type shiz or are you industry?

to tie in with the film ... Watchmen the game?!?! http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3168969

I bet the 'destroy your therapist's faith in human nature' level is going to KICK ASS!

roflz

How about the 'sit and read a fucking comic book by a newsstand while the world dies round you' sidequest?

or hot "unable to get it up sex sequence" in Nite Owl's apartment

That can be beaten with the 'rubber suit fetish' power-up.

would love Watchmen game in the style of 1985

http://www.nme.com/news/my-chemical-romance/38442

ok, i'm in with shakey and his lot now. fuck this movie.

and they were doing so well

as long as there's no more corgan jinx

But this is cool:

http://savagecritic.com/2008/07/retail-intelligence-impact-of-watchmen.html

Friend of mine is very interested in it now so I'm going to lend him my copy.

best case scenario I guess

Was in the Comics Dungeon yesterday (no, really), buying a copy of WillWorld, checking to see if Final Crisis 3 is out yet (no luck). While I was there, they sold two copies of Watchmen. If nothing else, a lot more people will read the comic, and AM will make a LOT more money. Which he'll probably wrap in tinfoil and stuff into his sofa cushions, but still...

Should really stick my grafitti edition up on ebay at some point in the near future.

I had TWO random guys come up to me while I was at the Strand last week, assume I worked there and asked me where they kept copies of the watchmen.

otoh this could also be taken as further proof of how stupid the general public is

(a la the "I saw a shitty overproduced trailer - that means the comic book must be cool!" school of deep thinking)

wrong.

it is not stupid at all: a lot of people newly became aware of a decent franchise that has (until now) been something of a niche and underground sensation.

so niche and underground Time magazine rates it as one of the best novels of all time

(also lolz calling a one-shot 12 issue series a "franchise")

MOST PEOPLE DO NOT READ GRAPHIC NOVELS DUH

yes exactly - and yet most people watch shitty hollywood summer blockbusters

instead

lol @ OMG DO NOT LET THE UNWASHED MASSES READ MY BOOK

I would prefer they read the book and skip the movie s'all

augh -- why am i even bothering?

the fact that very few people know / care about 12 issues of a comic book that ran nearly twenty years ago does not make them stupid at all.

the fact that a very average movie trailer brought it to their attention does not make them stupid, it makes them curious.

stupid stupid stupid stupid i am going away, this annoys me.

yes exactly - and yet most people watch shitty hollywood summer blockbusters

They do, do they?

yes exactly - and yet most people watch shitty hollywood summer blockbusters

They do, do they?

Well, most of them saw the Watchman trailer before The Dark Knight, so the answer is yes.

Ned - I liked your write-up about why you liked it much more than the film itself.

plz to describe overlap between groups "people who watch shitty Hollywood blockbusters" and "people who have memorized TIME Magazine's 100 Greatest Novels list which ran three years ago"

vs. people who read the first paragraph of the wikipedia article on the watchmen, which states that same fact.

Ned - I liked your write-up about why you liked it much more than the film itself.

Thanks!

Coverage of the "Watchmen" panel at ComicCon here and here. Apparently there's a red-band trailer coming:

We saw an exclusive red-band trailer that included some more adult-ish scenes from the movie. It started out with a close-up of Rohrshach's mask, then Dr. Manhattan blowing up vietnames people, who were literally exploding into pieces. Then the famous smiley face pin with blood falling on it. Rohrshach walking into flickering neon room, the Comedian's lair, looking at weapons and headlines like "Murderous Rampage Averted," and a picture of the Silk Spectre. We get to see the shapes on hishis mask transform and it looks amazingly cool. And we see some armor in the Comedian's lair. And then it switches to Nite Owl in his headquarters loking downcast and weary. And then the original Silk Specter posing for a photo with other 1940s heroes and rubbing her eyes, and then the Comedian leers at her. And then we saw a sparkling CGI rendering of the pirate ship from the Black Fortress, and a clock flickering. And then Sally unveils the Nite Owl Ship, pulling a big cloth off of it.

And someone is running a magnifying glass over tons of small clock gears, and then we see a clock ticking, and we watch Billy Crudup transform into Dr. Manhattan, with his flesh melting away into a skeleton. And we see Silk Spectre and Nite Owl lean in to kiss each other as a shooting star falls in the background, and then it turns into a nuclear explosion. The President swivels around in his chair and oh my god it's Nixon! And we saw the Nite Owl ship bursting up through the ice, and the Comedian fighting someone and totally fucking him up. And then some 1940s heroes bowling. And Dr. Manhattan obliterating someone who's pulled a gun on him — literally blasting them into pixels. And there's an amazingly sexy shot of Silk Spectre looking badass followed by a closeup of her torso as she pulls her top open, exposing a ton of cleavage. And then there's more Rohrshach, leaning in to intimidate someone, and then the Comedian falling out the window, tumb ling helplessly through the air and blood falling onto that smiley face badge again.

yeah sounds real classy

oh jesus shut the fuck up seriously

Your opinion is whatever but you don't have to divebomb us from the Airship High Horse.