Who should've directed 'Watchmen' circa 1990?

Which auteur could have done justice to WM back in the day?


  • Total voters
    45
Major Issues with a 1990 "comic book" movie

  1. Too long
    • To stick to the book one needs a lot of time
    • Studios and audiences will not stand for a comic book movie taking so long
  2. Not for kids?
    • "Bob I want to make a movie about superheroes who are depressed, lonely, murders, and ends with a massive genocide!"
    • Expect the 1990 studio controlled film to be sent through a series of rewrites so it can meet marketing, and censor approval.
  3. Too expensive
    • Thinking blade runner with capes right?
    • Wrong!
    • Scott made his film due to the actors strike which made many people willing to work for much lower wages.
    • CGI sucks so much of the awsome city shots, and other sets must be built, modeled, and designed
  4. Too depressing, dark, violent
    • Given the common type of superhero movie at the time would anyone want to see such a downer?
    • A movie about nuclear holocaust, ending in millions dead and no real happy ending?
    • I fear a reedit would occur, which makes people like Watchmen, but the directors cut making nerds love watchmen.

So we get what with all this taken into account?
A film about a washed up hero named Nite-Owl, brought back to avenge the death of his friend the Comedian. He deals with an ex-hero turned psycho, and stops his plot to "trick" the world into peace. The film ends with the Soviet Union falling apart by the people peacefully protesting, and Nite-Owl gets to smile knowing that in the end people do the right thing.:mad:
 
G.Fieendish said:
The only snag with the poll, is there are not enough auter type directors in it...
For example, how would a Mike Hodges (Flash Gordon & Get Carter), Alec Cox (Repo Man) or Paul Verhoven (Robocop & Starship Troopers) versions of Watchmen have done, cimematically in the 1990's...?

Really? I thought of every big budget auteur I could from the era. You're right about Verhoeven being a distinct possibility, but I don't think either Hodges or Cox had the right career trajectory for a late eighties/early nineties blockbuster.

Major Issues with a 1990 "comic book" movie

  1. Too long
    • To stick to the book one needs a lot of time
    • Studios and audiences will not stand for a comic book movie taking so long
  2. Not for kids?
    • "Bob I want to make a movie about superheroes who are depressed, lonely, murders, and ends with a massive genocide!"
    • Expect the 1990 studio controlled film to be sent through a series of rewrites so it can meet marketing, and censor approval.
  3. Too expensive
    • Thinking blade runner with capes right?
    • Wrong!
    • Scott made his film due to the actors strike which made many people willing to work for much lower wages.
    • CGI sucks so much of the awsome city shots, and other sets must be built, modeled, and designed
  4. Too depressing, dark, violent
    • Given the common type of superhero movie at the time would anyone want to see such a downer?
    • A movie about nuclear holocaust, ending in millions dead and no real happy ending?
    • I fear a reedit would occur, which makes people like Watchmen, but the directors cut making nerds love watchmen.

So we get what with all this taken into account?
A film about a washed up hero named Nite-Owl, brought back to avenge the death of his friend the Comedian. He deals with an ex-hero turned psycho, and stops his plot to "trick" the world into peace. The film ends with the Soviet Union falling apart by the people peacefully protesting, and Nite-Owl gets to smile knowing that in the end people do the right thing.:mad:

By and large this sounds resonable, despite the fact that Gilliam doesn't seem to have complained about artistic interference (I didn't know about Scott's rationale for making Blade Runner--I'd assumed because he made Alien then BL was an easy production for him to get going).

Though consider a select filmography of the above directors:

Ridley Scott, 'Alien' '79, 'Blade Runner' '82

Steven Spielberg, 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind', '77, 'E.T.', '83, the original Indiana Jones trilogy

George Lucas, 'THX 1138', '71, the original Star Wars trilogy

Terry Giliam, 'Time Bandits', '81, 'Brazil', '85, 'The Adventures of Baron Munchausen', '88

James Cameron, 'The Terminator', '84, 'Aliens', '86, 'The Abyss', '89

George Miller, the Mad Max trilogy, 'Twilight Zone: The Movie', '83, 'The Witches of Eastwick', '87

Tim Burton, 'Beetle Juice', '88, 'Batman', '89

Kathryn Bigalow, 'Near Dark', '87, 'Blue Steel', '89

Joe Dante, 'Gremlins', '84, 'Explorers', '85, 'Innerspace', '87

John Landis, 'An American Werewolf in London', '81, 'Twilight Zone: The Movie', '83, 'Thriller' (music video), '83

Peter Hyams, 'Capricorn One', '78, 'Outland', '81, '2010', '84

Tony Scott, 'The Hunger', '83, 'Top Gun', '86

David Cronenberg, 'The Dead Zone', '83, 'The Fly', '86

John Carpenter, 'Escape from New York', '81, 'The Thing', '82, 'They Live', '88

Richard Donner, 'Superman', '78, 'Lethal Weapon', '87, 'Lethal Weapon 2', '89

John McTiernan, 'Predator', '87, 'Die Hard', '88.

I don't think the major problem is the making of an SFX laden big budget movie for any of these directors twenty years ago. The problem is the genre, and the seriousness with which it was treated outside of the world of comics at the time (super hero movies only really came into their own cinematically with Burton's 'Batman'). But, once again, if Gilliam was given the project on the strength of Brazil, then I think a grown-up picture was at least in the works.

Perhaps Howard the Duck isn't such a screw-up & actually made money? This might inspire Hollywood to make an effort to faithfully adopt Moore's GN (if that wasn't already what was happening with the Gilliam project).
 
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