Trailer Tuesday: Watchmen

24/07 EDIT: The YouTube trailer seems to have been pulled down. You can still watch it in high definition streaming format here.


Man, do you have any idea how hard it's been for me to sit on this trailer since it debuted online last Friday?

Watchmen, based on the greatest superhero themed graphic novel of all time (hell, it's even made Time Magazine's Top 100 Novels of All Time), is easily my most highly anticipated film of 2009. And this trailer above just fuel injected my excitement to the next level. I've been on a mild high since Friday about it, and every time I watch the trailer I feel giddy.

And finally I understand the sex appeal of the Silk Spectre!

Anyway, I'm not saying the trailer is perfect - the Martian palace CGI towards the end definitely needs some spit and polish - but otherwise this looks like Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' seminal comics creation brought to life. And the trailer song choice (Smashing Pumpkins' The Beginning is the End is the Beginning) perfectly sets the film's tone.


I seriously advise anyone reading this blog who hasn't read the graphic novel to do so before the film's release next year. In the meanwhile though here's the plot synopsis:

A complex, multi-layered mystery adventure, "Watchmen" is set in an alternate 1985 America in which costumed superheroes are part of the fabric of everyday society, and the "Doomsday Clock" - which charts the USA's tension with the Soviet Union - is permanently set at five minutes to midnight.

When one of his former colleagues is murdered, the washed-up but no less determined masked vigilante Rorschach sets out to uncover a plot to kill and discredit all past and present superheroes. As he reconnects with his former crime-fighting legion - a ragtag group of retired superheroes, only one of whom has true powers - Rorschach glimpses a wide-ranging and disturbing conspiracy with links to their shared past and catastrophic consequences for the future. Their mission is to watch over humanity...but who is watching the watchmen?


Entertainment Weekly has a very interesting article on the Watchmen film. One of the most important revelations is that director Zack Synder's current cut of the film is sitting at around 3 hours. Although the cinema release will be trimmed down to 2 and a half hours at most, a super special edition DVD will probably feature Synder's extended version.

Yay, I'll definitely be waiting for that...

Anyway, as a companion piece to the Entertainment Weekly First Look, you can also read the magazine's interview with the eccentric Alan Moore - who despises Hollywood and has no interest in the Watchmen film (in fact, he even disses Zack Synder in the interview). However, Moore is still a creative genius who, as a bonus, also loves South Park, so you have to sit up and pay attention when this living legend speaks.

Anyway, there is no question that Watchmen is the the most ambitious and complex superhero property to make the transition to the big screen. As a result Warner Brothers is going all out in the months before the film's release to fill in the details that fans crave, while also presenting backstory and establishing a sense of the Watchmen world for anyone unfamiliar with it.

Warner Brothers is doing this with a cross-media approach similar to the one adopted in the lead-up to the Matrix sequels. For example, Watchmen's story-in-a-story, Tales of the Black Freighter, will be released in animated form on DVD in early March 2009. This DVD will also include a pseudo-documentary called Under the Hood, that delves into character backstories.

In addition, the studio is releasing a dozen 25 minute Webisodes called "The Watchmen Motion Comic," where portions of the graphic novel are given a slideshow animation treatment.

You can download the first of these motion comics for free from the iTunes store now (search for Watchmen in the search bar). Apparently they too could receive a DVD release in future.


If all this wasn't enough for you, right now you can check out more Watchmen movie pics and media on the bandwidth intensive official site, at Movieweb, and you can look at some screen caps from the trailer on My New Plaid Pants.

We only have 7 months and a bit to wait for Watchmen, which debuts on 6 March next year. In the meanwhile, if you need your Watchmen trailer fix on the big screen, you can find it currently attached to The Dark Knight.