Director Zach Snyder prepares to follow the unexpected box office success of his sleeper hit "300" with the highly-anticipated "Watchmen," a movie many comic fans said would never happen.
For a few moments, Zack Snyder gets to bask in the afterglow of the astonishingly positive response that greeted his Spartan
epic, "300," based on Frank Miller’s acclaimed 1998 Dark Horse miniseries. But, come September, he faces the monolith that is "Watchmen," a film that’s been in and out of development for over a decade. Wizard's Mike Cotton recently conducted an interview with Snyder, in which they discussed the director's unexpected triumph and the new project that now fills his every waking moment.
With "300," Snyder proved that, because of the great source material, a sword-and-sandals epic could score big with audiences despite the lack of a big star to carry the picture. The resulting film took the industry by storm, setting a March record with a $70.9 million opening weekend--especially impressive for an ultraviolent R-rated action film.
"90 percent of my budget restraints [on '300'] came from the R rating," said Snyder, who insisted on the adult-oriented content. "It’s the same thing with 'Watchmen.' I think in the end they’ll let me do what I want, but it’s going to come down to how much they’ll spend. In a marketing way, it’s something that challenges you in terms of everything that you think a superhero is, but in a cool way it’s still spectacle and moving. It’s just about how much the studio is willing to risk on that."
The entire interview can be found at http://www.wizarduniverse.com/movies.