Despite the fact that we left our faithful readers on a downer this past week concerning the legal battle over the rights to "Watchmen," two facts remain.
One, even though the release date may be in jeopardy because of all this, we will see "Watchmen" hit the multiplex eventually, and two, for co-creator Dave Gibbons, just that feat alone is a worthy accomplishment.
In a recent sit-down with the UK's Digital Spy, Gibbons related "Watchmen" making the jump to the screen like playing Mega Millions, saying, "I always looked upon it as a bit like having a ticket in a lottery. The chances are it won't come up, and if it doesn't come up I won't be disappointed. I haven't been holding my breath all these years thinking, 'Oh, please make a movie of it, it's gotta be a movie'. But the fact that it is being done, and it's being done quite well, I'm quite excited about it."
Yet the legal brouhaha has been just one obstacle "Watchmen" has faced lately -- the other, most notable problem being the now-confirmed change to the ending of "Watchmen" from the comic to the film, and that in itself has been a hot-button issue among fanboys. However, Gibbons -- who has been working hand-in-hand with director Zack Snyder in bringing the epic to film -- is quick to point out that "Watchmen" will have something for both the hardcore fans as well as those who have never heard of the groundbreaking comic.
"The fact that a lot of the images came out of my head made it an unusual experience for me, but it did have a pace to it, it did have a drive to it," Gibbons told Digital Spy. "It has got the richness that the comic book's got. I've seen the opening ten minutes of it maybe four or five times and I'm still catching details and nuances in it that I didn't see to begin with. I think the fans are going to love that. I think the general movie-going population, they're now familiar enough with superhero movies that they know what we're on about. They know the things that are being deconstructed."
And as far as working with Snyder, Gibbons had nothing but good things to say of the experience.
"He basically wanted me to look at the screenplay to make sure there was nothing in it that particularly offended me," said Gibbons. "I'm realistic enough to know that things have to be adapted and changed and compressed. I gave him comment on that. I did do some visualisations of scenes that hadn't been in the original graphic novel. I gave advice to the actors on set on how to deliver the lines. They didn't have to do that at all, and I kind of suspect on some of the previous productions they wouldn't have bothered."
Meanwhile, very little has been heard from or said in regards to Gibbons' "Watchmen" co-creator, Alan Moore -- who over the years has taken a staunch, anti-Hollywood stance in terms of his work, from "V for Vendetta," to "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen." However, Gibbons had his own theories on his "venom-spitting" partner.
"He has had some bad experiences with Hollywood and he doesn't want to repeat them," Gibbons related. "He doesn't take the moral high-ground, he's got no problem with me doing it. He's indifferent to the whole thing. He doesn't want to talk about it, doesn't want to know anything about it. I regret that because that comes out of a certain degree of unhappiness on his part."
Despite all of the legal snafus and changes to the source material, are you still excited about "Watchmen?" We wanna know in the comments.
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