Zack Snyder, director of the upcoming Watchmen, talked about the film's music, visual effects and the lawsuit against distributor Warner Brothers by 20th Century Fox seeking to halt the movie at a preview screening in West Hollywood, Calif., on Oct. 1.
Snyder also talked about his plans to incorporate other elements--including an animated version of the Tales of the Black Freighter--into an eventual DVD release of the movie.
Following is an edited version of some of Snyder's comments to an audience of press and others at the Warner lot. Watchmen opens March 6, 2009.
[Snyder begins talking about Tales of the Black Freighter and Under the Hood, which are part of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' original Watchmen graphic novel.]
Snyder: Basically, in the Watchmen universe, because the superheroes are real, ... they don't have comic books with superheroes in them. So they have pirate stories instead. ... The pirate story is woven through the graphic novel. And what we did is, we shot ... the ins and outs of it: ... The way you would come in and the way you would come out of the graphic novel as it weaves through the story. ...
Warner Premiere is going to release that animated little short film on its own, along with Under the Hood, which is sort of a documentary--a mockumentary--that chronicles the writing of Hollis Mason, the first Nite Owl's, book about being a superhero [on DVD]. Sort of a tell-all book. So those two pieces will be on there: this tell-all book documentary that tells us about what's in the book, interviews with different characters, and like a little news show, it's pretty cool. And then ... the Black Freighter. And then ... what we're hoping for later on is a Watchmen movie that has the Black Freighter in it [inserted as part of a longer version of the movie, most likely on DVD]. ...
What's the run time?
Snyder: The run time right now is right around two hours and 43 minutes. In its current form. It could get shorter. I hope not, but it could.
Is the Philip Glass music, used as a temporary music track in the preview footage, there to stay?
Snyder: That's a good question, I don't know. We're working on taking it out. But who knows. It works pretty good.
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Jeffrey Dean Morgan is The Comedian and Carla Gugino is the original Silk Spectre in Watchmen. (Clay Enos for Warner Brothers)
Can you talk about the music and the choices you have to make, the pop music and the score?
Snyder: One of my first conversations about the score was, ... there are all these songs referenced in the graphic novel. "All Along the Watchtower," "Unforgettable," just to name a couple. ... We end up having three Dylan songs, I think, in the movie, which ... I think is ... the vibe of the movie in a lot of ways. ... Tyler Bates, who's doing the music, and I talked a lot about ... songs. There's this sort of '85 aesthetic ... to some of the music that I think is really cool. ... It's, like, jazzy, and there's a lot of sort of synthesizers and sort of saxophones. It's very Blade Runnery or whatever, but it's cool. So that was like some of the stuff that we talked about early on, just as far as like a tone or a mood that we thought would be cool. Kind of like that noir, that sort of techno noir, weirdness into it, kind of fun.
In terms of the approach to the production, it's a pretty radical about face from 300, where you embraced the green screen so fully, and here you guys have major build of sets in Vancouver that was a major change in your process. Why the shift, and was it driven by the material?
Snyder: Yeah I think it was driven by the material, for me anyway. ... I have this sort of obsession with tone, and I feel like the tone of 300 is very particular to the way we shot it. And I feel like this also, even though it's physical, it's fantastic, but it's still dirty. It's like this weird hybrid of the impossible and the dirty together. ... That was where we started off talking about what we would do, and I think it just, it evolved into building everything. ...
As far as things that are terrifying fanboys, is there really a sequel clause in the actors' contracts?
Snyder: I don't know that, I have to be honest. That would be interesting, but there can't be a sequel.
A prequel?
Snyder: There can't be a prequel. Not with me involved, anyway. ... They might be able to find someone to do it, but it wouldn't be me. That's crazy talk.
Can you give your reaction to the Fox lawsuit and do you have any concerns of the release actually happening? [Fox, which claims it still holds some rights to Watchmen, has sued to stop the release of the film.]
Snyder: We're just working on the movie, and I'm not a lawyer, so it's hard for me to, you know, to comment on that. I probably shouldn't, I guess. But you know, we've just been forging ahead. If they want to come and stop us, I guess they would, but they haven't yet, so it's fun. So we just act like we're making a movie.
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The 1940 Minutemen (left to right): Apollonia Vanova as Silhouette, Niall Mater as Mothman, Dan Payne as Dollar Bill, Clint Carleton as the original Nite Owl, Daryl Scheeler as Captain Metropolis, Carla Gugino as the original Silk Spectre, Glenn Ennis as Hooded Justice and (kneeling) Jeffrey Dean Morgan as The Comedian. (Clay Enos for Warner Brothers)
The graphic novel's a commentary on superhero comic books. How much of your film is a commentary on superhero comic-book movies? Like, Ozymandias' costume references Batman's suit. Is it a knowing send-up?
Snyder: I feel like you can't make a superhero movie that is self-aware in this day and age that does not acknowledge the jillions now of superhero movies that exist in the marketplace. Not only exist in the marketplace but really drive the marketplace, you know? ... I always say, like, my parents know origin stories of superheroes they have no business knowing. It's really not cool. ...
Comic books had their own [subculture], they lived in their own subculture, and then Hollywood hijacked them and just machine-gunned them into pop culture in a crazy way. So I guess if there had been no other superhero movies before us, or if this movie had gotten made in the '80s, you could have ... really done the costumes exactly as they were in the book. ...
I think the more you want to intellectualize ... what we've done, I think you can go all the way with it. ... We worked really hard to ... have everything mean something. We didn't do anything by mistake, I guess is my point. ...
Even though I wanted to reference superhero movies, I wanted to reference [all] cinema as well, you know, and superhero and comic books. It becomes ... like a pop-culture-soup thing [that we] ladle out.
