Director Talks 300, Watchmen Films

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Zack Snyder explains why ancient Sparta is cool and why he'd sign up to do Watchmen, a film that's burned through several directors already.

Director Zack Snyder (Dawn of the Dead) talks with Superhero Hype about his upcoming comics to film projects Frank Miller's historic epic 300 and Alan Moore's iconoclastic Watchmen.

"The thing that's cool about '300' to me is that though it's a Frank Miller work, as an event in history, it's one of the seminal events," Snyder said. "Everyone knows about it. I mean, any historian will tell you about Thermopylae, a famous crossroads in history. And so for that matter, it is a worthwhile story to tell, and I think that Frank, like myself, is inspired by that same story."

Regarding Watchmen: "Yeah, working on the script and if it's awesome, I'll do it. It is challenging, and I have to say that if I can crack 'Watchmen' it would be awesome for everybody. I just don't think that Hollywood, in general, has any idea what 'Watchmen' is. They think it's a superhero movie. They think it's 'Fantastic Four,' and guys, it really isn't. Basically, they thought they were making 'The Champ' and they got frickin' 'Fight Club,' you know what I mean? That's the difference.

"That's how hard it is. The problem is that if everyone thinks they're getting a superhero movie, what they're going to get is like something that really makes them examine the entire genre," he said.

Snyder added that he's got a marked up, dog-eared copy of the Watchmen graphic novel on his bedstand that he's been studying for awhile, making directorial notes. He adds that the film may have to be two movies and could taken a half-decade to complete.

Here's some comments the director made recently at Comic-Con: "'Watchmen' is different because it's a building and it's a modern world. I don't think that the intention of 'Watchmen' is to render… For instance, like Richard Nixon, you can't film Richard Nixon because he doesn't exist, so would you put a guy in prosthetics and make him look like Richard Nixon? That's one way to do it and it's kind of cool. Would you do some sort of 'Zelig'-y stolen footage thing? That's another way to do it. I tend to go towards the guy in prosthetics who looks like a crazy version of Richard Nixon, because it looks more like the drawings."

He added that he'll be using a lot of David Hayter's earlier script of the film that he prepared when he was helming the project. But Snyder added that neither Hayter's nor Alex Tse's recent take are just what he wants.

Regarding whether he was nervous taking on a project that has been in the works since the 1980s. "Of course, if you don't think that then you're just 'I'm scared of it!' Honestly though, for me, 'Watchmen' is so cool that whenever I get bummed out about the script or about making it into a movie and what everyone thinks, I just go to the book and open it up, look at it and go, 'Okay, this is going to be awesome. Don't freak yourself out.'"

You can read the rest of the interview with Snyder here.

Bob Gough
8/4/2006
Source: Superhero Hype

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