So my point with 300 is that it was definitely faithful to the comic, but I think it was faithful to a fault. Every image and line was like a direct port from the comic. I like when films are properly adapted from a comic source, but I think just doing a direct port (line for line, image for image) can be a problem. What would be considered heavy and weighty in comic form can become pretty shallow and cheesy as a film.
So I just read a little about Alan Moore (the creator of Watchmen). He also created "The LEague of Extraordinary Gentlemen", "From Hell", "Constantine" and "V for Vendetta". All were turned into movies. Apparently since "League of Extraordinary Gentleman" came out and some legal dispute about alleged plagiarized content, Moore has hated the process of seeing his work adapted to film. He was outraged by several parts of "V for Vendetta", refused to be credited in the "Constantine" movie, and also refuses to be credited in "The Watchmen" film. That's rather interesting to me.
Moore's reaction was to divorce himself from the film world: he would refuse to allow film adaptations of anything to which he owned full copyright. In cases where others owned the rights, he would withdraw his name from the credits and refuse to accept payment, instead requesting that the money go to his collaborators (i.e. the artists). This was the arrangement used for the film Constantine
So maybe having a hack director who meticulously ports the graphic novels scene by scene/image by image/line by line might make Moore happy. But in general I have pretty low expectations for this movie.
I thought V for Vendetta was great, do you think he was fed up with the process or do you think the book/graphic novel really was that much better than the movie?
There is a lot of info on his wiki. Specifically about V for Vendetta it says:
The last straw came when producer Joel Silver said at a press conference for the Warner Bros. film adaptation of V for Vendetta that fellow producer Larry Wachowski had talked with Moore, and that "he [Moore] was very excited about what Larry had to say."[37] Moore claims that he told Wachowski "I didn't want anything to do with films... I wasn't interested in Hollywood," and demanded that DC Comics force Warner Bros to issue a public retraction and apology for Silver's "blatant lies", even though Silver appeared to have been lied to himself by Larry Wachowski. Although Silver called Moore directly to apologize, no public retraction appeared. Moore was quoted as saying that the film had "plot holes so big, you wouldn't have gotten away with it in Whizzer and Chips" and complained about the addition of things like "eggy in a basket", which he saw as an ill-researched attempt by Hollywood screenwriters to make an American dish sound English. Moore once again announced that he would no longer work for DC, which is owned by Warner Bros.
And this is an interesting blip about the creation of this "Watchmen" film:
Warner Bros. confirmed in June 2006 that Zack Snyder would direct a film adaptation of Watchmen,[52] which is set for release on March 6, 2009.[53] The cast includes Patrick Wilson, Malin Akerman, Jackie Earle Haley, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode and Jeffrey Dean Morgan.[54] Previously, directors including Paul Greengrass, Terry Gilliam,[55] Darren Aronofsky,[56] and screenwriter David Hayter have been attached to the project over the years.[57] While Moore believes that David Hayter's screenplay was "as close as I could imagine anyone getting to Watchmen," he asserted he did not intend to see the film if it were made.[58] Moore "refuses to have his name attached to any...films"[59] However, Gibbons has stated he feels Snyder can make a good film and is supporting him.[60]
I personally liked V for Vendetta, but I think anytime a comic/novel/graphic novel gets adapted to film, there is always the chance that the author of the original work is going to despise the contamination of his work. They invest so much time and effort into it and hate to see someone misinterpret sections, leave out considerable plot points or just mess the entire thing up.
You ever see the TV show "Californication"? They take that concept and make a joke about it. The main character's backstory is that he wrote a novel called, "God Hates us All" and it was adapted to crappy hollywood film called "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" starring Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes.
Anyway... maybe Alan Moore just doesn't want to see his work ruined... but with something that is considered to be the "greatest graphic novel of all time", I imagine it's going to be pretty difficult to pull it off as a film. Especially from the hack director who did 300.