24 March 2005

Watchmen in preproduction

So it turns out that this Paul Greengrass bloke who is going to direct Watchmen is a more interesting bloke than I imagined. There's a fascinating three part interview with him at Cinematic Happenings Under Development and it is quite encouraging.
A film works in a different way, I think, to the plates of a graphic novel. In its way I think you can suggest depth of a different kind. I absolutely do want, intend and believe that we will bring to screen a Watchmen world that has depth and allusiveness. That it has that kind of richness and texture of the graphic novel.
...
In many ways the Doctor Manhattan of the graphic novel -- when I read that story now, I find myself feeling that Alan Moore was many, many things but one of the things he was is a prophet. There’s an odd kind of a mismatch in the graphic novel between the world where there is this great power underpinning it called Doctor Manhattan and the bi-polar world. When you look today, we live in a uni-polar world. In many ways we live more in Doctor Manhattan’s era, I think, then we did then.
...
You can’t expect people to say, "Paul Greengrass is making a film and it’s going to be great because he did Bloody Sunday and Bourne Supremacy is quite a good film." We can fuck this thing up. Of course we could. You never know. It’s like cooking. It’s like any human endeavor. You have to set out with some vision, with passion for the material, with humility and with a listening ear. And you have to start. That’s what you have to do, start and say you believe you can do this and carry the community and reach a big new audience. If I didn’t believe that I wouldn’t start. All I ask is to be judged when the time is there. As I know I will be!
He talks like someone who knows what he's doing. So I've got my fingers crossed; it might just work, after all.

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