Zack Snyder Says He Made WATCHMEN To "Save It From The Terry Gilliams Of This World"
Joel Silver last week revealed that Terry Gilliam's version of Watchmen would have featured some major changes to the source material, later criticising Zack Snyder for being a "slave" to the comic book. Well, the Batman Vs. Superman director has now struck back...
According to Joel Silver, Terry Gilliam's Watchmen would have involved Doctor Manhattan going back in time to stop himself from ever being created and the core cast of characters all being turned into cosplayers in the middle of Times Square. Something like that anyway (it's not easy to get your head around a concept which essentially sounds like gibberish). The Huffington Post recently caught up with Zack Snyder, and he had this to say about Silver's comments that he was, "too much of a slave to the material." "It's funny, because the biggest knock against the movie is that we finally changed the ending, right? If you read the Gilliam ending, it's completely insane. The fans would have stormed the castle on that one. So, honestly, I made "Watchmen" for myself. It's probably my favorite movie that I've made. And I love the graphic novel and I really love everything about the movie. I love the style. I just love the movie and it was a labor of love. And I made it because I knew that the studio would have made the movie anyway and they would have made it crazy. So, finally I made it to save it from the Terry Gilliams of this world."
As for why exactly he's not a fan of such drastic changes to the classic comic book from Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, Snyder added: "It's just using elements that are in the comic book already, that's the only thing I did. I would not have grabbed something from out of the air and said, "Oh, here's a cool ending" just because it's cool." As it turns out, Snyder also isn't too happy with the way his version was perceived anyway, and believes that Watchmen would have found a lot more success had it been released now. "And that's the problem with genre. That's the problem with comic book movies and genre. And I believe that we've evolved -- I believe that the audiences have evolved. I feel like "Watchmen" came out at sort of the height of the snarky Internet fanboy -- like, when he had his biggest strength. And I think if that movie came out now -- and this is just my opinion -- because now that we've had "Avengers" and comic book culture is well established, I think people would realize that the movie is a satire." Meanwhile, his wife and producer Deborah summed up Gillam's take quite perfectly: "The fans would have been thinking that they were smoking crack." What do you guys think?