Zack Synder*, the man currently trying to bring the long-in-development film adaptation of Alan Moore’s Watchmen to the silver screen (a project I just can’t see working—the source material is just too complex and dense to cover in two to three hours), at least sounds sane.
[*Snyder is the director of the soon to be released and very weird looking Spartans movie 300, which is also a comic book adaptation. Should that film take off in a major way, and the buzz at least is good, Watchmen could take a sudden shift into production overdrive. There’s even some saying the film could be in theaters by late next year, although that seems pretty unlikely for me.]
He says one advantage of the long wait for it to get made (if it does) is that it makes setting it back in 1985 (and before) more likely. That’s the proper setting for the story, since it has a lot of Cold War resonance and involves Viet Nam and Nixon and such like. Snyder says, however, that the studio was iffy about the setting when it was just, at that point in time, the very recent past, and wanted to update it to what was then the present day instead.
Now that the mid-’80s is twenty years ago, apparently the ‘period setting’ thing strikes the studio suits as less weird.
Synder also likes the setting as he feels it will keep the film, were the setting updated to the current day, from being seen (as much, anyway) as a comment on the current war on terror. “‘Oh Zack,” he is quoted as imaging being asked, “what do you think of the war on terror? What’s your take on it?’ Who gives a f*ck what I think about the war on terror?” Who indeed? Man, if only more people in Hollywood took that attitude.
Synder also wants to only use CG as necessary, which admittedly might be a lot, but which is still another point in his favor. However, the fact that he envision the film as “more Taxi Driver than Fantastic Four” really proves he gets it. (Although this shouldn’t be hard to figure out, as perhaps the main character in the comic sounded A LOT like Travis Bickle.)
