Watchmen in Sydney

Last week proved to be a busy one; the day after my Dying Breed interviews I attended an exclusive preview of 25 minutes of Watchmen introduced by director Zack Snyder. Even after his sterling efforts on the Dawn of the Dead and 300 there has been much consternation amongst the comic book crowd over his placement as helmsman on arguably the most long awaited comic book adaptation of them all, Alan Moore’s Watchmen.

Well he proved to be both the perfect host, and on the strength of the footage we were shown, the perfect choice of director. The attention to detail is breathtaking and the comic book aesthetic created by Moore and artist David Gibbons has been painstakingly recreated, even in the unfinished state we witnessed. He waxed lyrical about each clip he showed us, setting up its position in the film. He even took time out to answer all of the audience’s questions. We started, funnily enough, at the beginning with the first 10 minutes of the film including the extraordinary opening credits showing the superheroes lives through an alternative history that shows the likes of JFK, Andy Warhol, David Bowie and The Village People brushing shoulders with our caped heroes to the dulcet tones of Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are a-Changin. We were also taken on a trip to Mars and witnessed a prison break out. If they are not already; Dr Manhattan, The Comedian, Night-Owl, Ozymandias and Rorschach will be household names come March 2009.

When questioned how the film would sell to the non comic book fanatics out there, he even managed a dig at the Hollywood studios. “Well, Iron Man, Batman and Superman had man in the title which is cool and we do too, sort of,” he laughed, “so we’re gonna go with that for one thing, people are gonna go, ‘Boom, look at that!!!’” he exclaims, “Men…..we should go see that!”