 WIZARD: Originally, you didn't want to do "Watchmen," did you?
ZACK SNYDER: For me it was almost too much. I was too aware of it, and I was too scared of the baggage that it had.
What turned you around on it?
SNYDER: I knew that someone would do it. They were like, "We're going to make Watchmen into a movie." I remember going, "Well, let me take a meeting and find out what the deal is." I remember sitting in the meeting and having them go, "Okay, we're going to update the movie. It's going to be about the war on terror. It's going to be modern and super-cool." Then I went, "Okay, I'll do it."
You wanted to save it?
SNYDER: I don't want to say that, because who knows? Someone could've gotten it and done a great job with it. I felt like it was a thing they didn't know they had. They thought it was a movie.
I think you lost me…
SNYDER: It's not a movie. It's something else. Sure, it's a story. A guy gets murdered and we have to find out who killed him and why. But it's also so much more. Comic books and comic book heroes used to be counterculture. People who read comic books were on the fringe, and then Hollywood sort of hijacked the superhero and now…superheroes are the man. They're corporate America. That's just the way it is. Spider-Man is a f---ing Happy Meal. That's all there is to it, and he generates tons of revenue. It's the same with Batman. I don't care how dark he is. He's still part of the machine.
And "Watchmen?"
SNYDER: "Watchmen" says, "F--- the man." That's what it is and that's what it does. In every way it does that. It's counter-intuitive to a superhero movie in every way. There's no way that you have any idea where this movie is going. If you don't know the book, you're going to be like, "What the f---? What is this? Why?" I said, "If I can do a two-hour advertisement for the book, then I've succeeded." I'm not trying to replace the book. I couldn't. If I wanted to do that it would be a mistake. But I think if I can get people going, "Yeah, I have to check that out because this movie was awesome. I want to see what everyone is talking about." So that's how I feel about it and that's really how I came to terms with the why of doing it. I thought, "If I can get at the tone of Watchmen, at the tone of what makes it unique and along the way try and get as much detail as I can," but I think more than the specifics of the story it's that thing. It's that "F--- the man" attitude. If you can make that real in the movie, then you've done it.
Now, unfortunately, you haven't been able to speak to writer Alan Moore about the adaptation, right?
SNYDER: I've not spoken with Alan. I've spoken with [Watchmen co-creator] Dave [Gibbons] a lot. Dave is doing awesome. From the beginning, it was Alan's desire, even from before I was involved, he said, "Look, just leave me out of it. That's all I ask. Don't make any assumptions about what I think and I'll be quite happy." That's what we've tried to do. I've just said that I was going to do the best job that I can with this graphic novel and I'm going to try and respect Alan's wishes and that's it.
Do you think audiences are tired of comic book films?
SNYDER: I think that audiences can see the irony. The great thing about "Watchmen" is that it never makes fun of the genre.
The audience knows the pop culture aspect of it…
SNYDER: I guess my point is that, you asked me why the movie hasn't worked in the past, and I think that's part of the reason why it's been so difficult. This movie without the irony or the irreverence…because you can imagine where [Nite-Owl] can't have a scene where he can't get it up, that's got to be out of the movie, right? The Comedian can't rape anyone. That's not cool as a superhero. How are we supposed to feel about him? You can't just kill a pregnant woman, but those are the things that he has to do. He has to do those things. If he doesn't do those things, he's just a superhero. He's like The Punisher.
So, you think pop culture has learned the comic vocabulary?
SNYDER: Yeah, because now they know rules. You can break them now, where before they didn't know the rules because there were no rules. |
