We talk WATCHMEN with Zach Snyder

We sit down with Zach Snyder and talk about everyday superheroes, aka Watchmen at Comic Con! We had a chance to sit down with Zach Snyder at Comic Con and talk Watchmen. Later in the week we will give you the full blown interview but for now just a taste. Comic Con is madness and to post all the interviews now would make my brain explode.. as much as I would love to. Zach Snyder hot off the heels of sharing the footage of Watchmen to all us geeks wasnt nervous at all. To him it was just like sharing his passion with his buddies. When asked if he was nervous he told us;

No I am not, you know a little bit. It is fun to show it. Its like you know your friend who loves Watchmen and I have a few.. and I go hey let me show you something. Its kinda like that on a giant scale.

As a quick recap for those who may not know what WATCHMEN is all about “Watchmen” is set in an alternate 1985 America in which costumed superheroes are part of the fabric of everyday society, and the “Doomsday Clock” – which charts the USA’s tension with the Soviet Union – is permanently set at five minutes to midnight. When one of his former colleagues is murdered, the washed up but no less determined masked vigilante Rorschach sets out to uncover a plot to kill and discredit all past and present superheroes.

As he reconnects with his former crime-fighting legion – a ragtag group of retired superheroes, only one of whom has true powers – Rorschach glimpses a wide-ranging and disturbing conspiracy with links to their shared past and catastrophic consequences for the future. Their mission is to watch over humanity… but who is watching the Watchmen?”

The fun part of doing a comic book movie where the heroes live amonst us as regular folks is you want to play on the cliches but also have fun with it. Something Zach set out to do with this project. He told us the more cliche SuperHero stuff they could put in Watchmen.. the better. Including the nipples on the outfits. Its just a cliche must. The big challenge is transfering the message of Watchmen into a movie that isnt 5 hours long, and still holding onto the message which is the core of the graphic novels. Does this bring pressure to Zach? Yes it does, but most of its his own doing. When asked about the pressures of doing Watchmen he told us;

I do a little bit, but I also feel like I wanna make the best movie I can. I put pressure on myself just as a filmmaker to say, whats the coolest movie? And if the coolest movies 3 hours long thats the coolest movie.

I understand and respect my partners at Warner Brothers and I want them to have a financial success with the film. They want it to be good. But on the other hand I think I would say to them the very things that they would think are to long or to hard to understand or to violent or to sexy are the very reasons to go to the movie. So its typical to say the movie is to sexy or to violent but I have to say guys, should we just release nothing?

I would think the Dark Knights success would help our film. It feels like it would on paper when you think about it. I can go in a room and say that Watchmen should be at LEAST 15 minutes longer then Batman. Any geek will tell you that. Go out into comic con and do a poll and see if it makes sense to fans. Regardless of whether we have enough footage, it just should be.

One of the big things about Watchmen is the characters are very much over the top and not your typical superhero characters that can be done easily without CGI. So we know there is going to be a ton of CGI but there is practical FX as well in the movie as Zach reveals. There is alot of CGI, especially in the case of Manhattan but its done in such a way to become its own actor. He told us;

Problem is you have Manhattan in alot of shots and hes just CG. Its really amazing for me. That shot of Manhattan walking through Vietnam you know hes 30 feet tall. Thats a superhero thing. The thing to see and the revelation to me is him just talking and doing nothing and just emoting in the subtlest way which is something I have never seen from a CG character. All he is doing is acting. Hes not blowing stuff up or jumping off the walls or doing CG stuff. Hes just being sad. Its pretty cool.

Obviously the big question is how will Watchmen the movie compare to Watchmen the Graphic Novel and Zachs answer to this question is an easy out answer which puts him in good with the fans of the comics, and shows his own passion for it.

You know the comic books are currently #1 on Amazon. Which is awesome. So if this movie ends up being a 3hour commercial for the comic book then so be it. I have succeeded.

Thanks to Warner Brothers for giving us time with Zach Snyder and look for our complete interview early next week when things are a bit more sane around here!  More non-stop comic con action is coming!