Zack Snyder at Comic Con 2007

My first year at Comic Con was 2006, it was the same year Zack Snyder brought the Frank Miller adaptation 300 to Comic Con and previewed footage from the flick that absolutely floored the audience. No one was prepared for that preview reel and subsequently it was shown four more times. The film went on to be a huge box-office hit and gave Snyder a name. That same year, during the interviews at Comic Con Snyder told us this when we mentioned how he was now attached to direct Watchmen in relation to making 300:

The difference is that where Frank's book is like a series of paintings that tell a story I think that Alan [Moore]'s book is more like a novel that has drawings in it.

My feeling with "Watchmen" is that yes, I made a deal with everybody, I want to make this movie, it would be awesome to make it. I need to be convinced that it is worth making, that we have the respect that needs to be had to be able to say, "Okay, here is a thing that needs to be filmed."

I am going to wait and see, right now I am the biggest skeptic.

He then discussed the material and the difficulty in adapting the Moore novel:

Well I think the knee jerk for everyone is to go, "Update it, make it contemporary, make it the war on terror or whatever," and that's all cool, but I don't know. I don't know if that's cooler than making the book just the way it is. Is the metaphor clearer if you update it or is the metaphor clearer if you just render it the way it is, as a metaphor? That might be a better way to do it, I don't know.

He said much more and you can find it all at the end of the interview right here on an old version of RopeofSilicon, but first let's take a peek and see where those comments have gotten us. Our time was short and luckily I burst into the interview with the first question before some nitwit asked him what it was like to speak in front of the Comic Con crowd, a question you will notice has been removed from this interview since the answer had nothing to do with anything.

I hope you enjoy and be sure to come back as I have plenty more Watchmen interviews coming over the course of the week.

One of the comments after the trailer debuted was that those that never read the book could be confused. Fans of the novel realized it as something amazing as they saw some of their favorite panels from the comic brought to life, but those that have never read it were saying, "Wow, that is visually amazing but what's it all about." How do you intend on getting those that have never read the book into the theaters outside of great visuals?

Zack Snyder (ZS): Yeah, it's a drama. I always say to marketing, "You can show all the action. You want to show all the action it's awesome." Because in a normal comic book movie if you show all the action there's nothing else to show, you've run out of stuff. With "Watchmen" I don't feel that way at all and I feel now, as the campaign starts to amp up for what the movie is, and with the help of you guys, I think that's the process – you can't take "Watchmen" to pop culture, you have to bring them to the movie. For instance, if I made a version of "Watchmen" which was easily understandable by mass culture it wouldn't be the book, it wouldn't be "Watchmen". In that way, I think when people see it and they're like, "What the fuck is that?" I think that's right, that's the right step.

For instance, the graphic novel is #2 at Amazon after the trailer comes out because people are like, "I gotta know what that is." To me, that's it. People ask, "Should I not read the graphic novel before I see it?" and I have to tell them it's not that kind of movie.

On the other hand does that scare you, because you have pushed "Watchmen's" profile higher because now more people are going to expect something…

ZS: That's cool, that's fine. The truth is, the movie is not supposed to replace the graphic novel. That was not my intent at all. If anything I would hope the movie is an advertisement for the graphic novel. It would be cool if people saw the movie and were like, "I gotta know everything about this," and then they go out and buy it, that would be the best.

Also, when you start to think about again, how does pop culture start to come to the work? I honestly believe there are two ways. One, you create a hype machine that just makes people go, "I gotta see it, I don't know what it is but I gotta be part of the Zeitgeist or I'll be at a cocktail party and someone will ask, ‘Hey did you like Watchmen?' and I'll be like, ‘I didn't see it,' and then it's ‘Okay, you're a loser.'" There's that version where you're it's like if you don't see it it's like you don't know what's happening, like you just came out of a cave and then the other version, which I think is probably a combination of the two, which it pretty much has to be when you consider the material.

The other version is to start this relentless sort of dumping of the material on people and saying it deconstructs this, it fucks with your mythology, it reinvents the superhero genre. All those things where mass culture has a teeny bit of superhero fatigue and I think the idea of a movie that is an answer to that is also a thing that could be appealing.

Why is now the right time for this film?

ZS: I believe mass culture has been educated by the movies. Look at the last year, the amount of superhero movies that have come out have been huge in pop culture and changed the landscape. I say it all the time, "My parents know Bruce Wayne's parents were killed by a murderer." They know that, you can ask anyone and they will say, "He was killed… outside an opera… it was horrible." That is geeky. You're a geek. Before movies, having that knowledge meant you had "Batman (1)" or you knew the origin stories. To me pop culture is ready; they are ready for "Watchmen". They did all the primer work that 20 years ago they would have been like, "What is this? Who cares about this?" This is the mythology of superheroes.

300 was really great and the visuals translated to film so well, but so much of "Watchmen" is the narrative, it seems like a much different challenge.

ZS: It's true. On paper that is true, but I feel like for me movies are about perspective and point of view. When we did 300 I was trying to get at Frank's point of view; What does he think? How does he feel? I tried to get at the tone of the graphic novel. I love this idea of self-awareness movies have and I think all my movies have. People think 300 is super, heart-attack serious where as if you have seen Dawn of the Dead, and once you see Watchmen, if you go back and watch 300 it will change your point of view on that movie.

I love 300 and it is exactly the movie I wanted to make, but when people see it without understanding me they feel like it is purely visual, which makes sense, but what I tried to do was get at Frank, and what he's about. That was also true of Dawn, I was a fan of George A. Romero, and I wanted the movie to be more of a love letter to him than a remake of his movie.

So when we came to do "Watchmen" it was that same experience again, I was trying to figure out what is it about Alan Moore's work? What is it about this work that is individual? What is that perspective? What is that point of view? Try to get at that.

The narrative is bizarre and crazy. The studio is always like, "Story, story, story…" and I am like, "It's not like that…"

Remember if you want to read that old interview of mine with Snyder before Watchmen was even 100% confirmed click here.

Related post categories: Comic-Con, Interviews, Movie News : Watchmen, Zack Snyder

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