Cinematical is watching the Watchmen

Erik Davis over at cinematical got a chance to peep twelve minutes of Watchmen at a special screening set up by Snyder last night. Dave Gibbons, the artist on the book, was also in attendance. Check out the article to hear about the footage (which sounds amazing) and the Q&A that followed.

Interesting to note: Kevin Smith was quoted as saying there were two changes in the film, one major and one minor. In the footage described there is an opening montage that gets the audience acquainted with the revised history of the US according to the events in the comic. There is also the scene where Nite Owl and Silk Spectre break Rorschach out of prison, and this has apparently been changed to include a fight scene, rather than just a horn that immobilizes the guards. Could these be the two changes that Smith was talking about? They both seem rather minor to me, so perhaps there's another one lurking within the film somewhere? I'm not opposed to these changes, in fact I think the idea behind both of these rather sound like improvements, or at least welcome adaptive changes. Only time will tell I suppose, but the more I hear about this the more excited I get. Here's hoping the film lives up to the footage Erik got to see last night!

New Watchmen Video Journal! Doc Manhattan!

Its a doc about the Doc, and its exclusive over at sci-fi.  I haven't had the time to watch it yet, but I'm so absurdly amped for this movie that I decided to post it right away.  Check it out and let me know what you think.  These video journals have gotten better with each one.  

In other video journal news, it sounds like Kevin Smith is having trouble with the MPAA over the Money Shots making of shorts he was going to release in advance of Zack and Miri.  Here's hoping they get through without much editing, and in time to be useful promotion for the film.

Live action Heavy Metal adaptation Directors!

That's right, the live action, David Fincher lead adaptation of Heavy Metal just had some director's names dropped. And let me tell you, these are some impressive names. But before we get to that (don't you hate when bloggers do that to you?) lets talk about the Ben Button drama. According to Heavy Metal publisher (and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles co-creator) Kevin Eastman, the project has moved from Paramount to Sony because "they were at odds with Fincher over another project, 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,' they wanted him to reduce the running time... and so they said, 'Until you step up to do what we want you to do with Benjamin, we're not going to green light any other of [your] movies.' And David said, 'Fine, fuck you, I'm going to set up [Heavy Metal] somewhere else." If anyone has been following this (and this should be a sufficient answer to the post I made a few weeks ago requesting more information from Peter Sciretta about the behind the scenes goings ons), Paramount really wants Fincher to reduce his 3 hour cut of Ben Button significantly. I heard he actually trimmed 15 minutes off for them and they still wanted more, so he said screw em. Thus, no Heavy Metal at Paramount. Jessica Barnes over at cinematical makes a good point in that Paramount probably didn't expect Fincher to call their bluff. Too bad for them!

But now the important news that you read that whole paragraph for (and if you didn't shame on you, I work hard on this stuff), the directors. Eastman has confirmed that Guillermo Del Toro (Hellboy, Pan's Labrynth, the upcoming Hobbit adaptation), Zack Snyder (300, Dawn of the Dead remake, and the upcoming Watchmen), and Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Carribean, The Weather Man, The Ring) are all attatched to direct a segment, and Fincher is expected to direct one as well. Apparantly, in contrast to the original animated version, there will be 8-9 segments. Here's hoping for more awesome directors.

Who else is excited as all get out about this!?

Watchmen Update!

The courts have set a date for January to begin the trial between Fox and WB. Hopefully this means we'll still get 03.06.09 as an opening date, as this seems to be the perfect opening day for Watchmen. No one else seems to be discussing this, but part of the genius of Watchmen is the way it views time. Keeping with the theme that time is not linear, but rather like a "diamond" (there used to be a video on youtube of Alan Moore, author of Watchmen, describing his theory of time this way, and it is obvious the book is written in coherence with this idea, but I couldn't find the video), which he really gets into exploring in issue 5, Fearful Symmetry, 03.06.09 seems to indicate underlying mathematics that may give meaning to existence, or at least influence it. Thus, I'm even more excited about the movie, since it seems Snyder is trying to keep completely in sync with Moore's vision, even in the advertising. So here's hoping we get to keep that date! (As I've said before, it's also the day before my birthday :-D)