We don’t mean to sound unduly cynical or anything, but if you’re really a fan of Alan Moore’s masterpiece, Watchmen, perhaps this is good, rather than bad news.
According to Variety, Fox are suing Warner Bros (who’ve footed most of the bill for and stand to pocket most of the cash from the Watchmen adaptation), claiming that they in fact own the copyright to this $50 million film and, so, you know, pony up the cash, bitches.
Or maybe not even that. Says Variety: “Fox’s legal team says it isn’t looking for monetary compensation and instead wants to prevent the big-budget film from being released altogether.”
Watchmen is one of those films that has a certain section of the fan boy populace slavering. But why? Alan Moore doesn’t give a shit about it. He never has, and for good reason: his films have been consistently mangled by rubbish adaptations. LXG, V for Vendetta, From Hell… Why should Watchmen be any better? Oh sure, 300 was good fun for a fascist/homophobic romp, but that doesn’t make Zack Snyder the ‘visionary’ that Warners’ bullshit marketing has hailed him as.
Watchmen isn’t Spiderman or Batman – you can’t just select the best bits and stick them on screen with your fingers crossed. Moore wrote it as a graphic novel because that was the incarnation that best suited the story. It lives and breathes on page and in Dave Gibbons’ ink because that is the only way it can exist. You can put it on screen if you want, but it won’t be Watchmen.
Perhaps we’ll never get to find out how bad it is. Perhaps we’ll be denied a legitimate cinematic masterpiece. Probably it’ll all get resolved and time will tell.
