Who Will Watch the Watchmen?

Who Will Watch the Watchmen?

Posted on Thursday October 9, 2008, 10:13 by Dan Goodswen in Empire States

Having watched the trailer for Warner Brothers' $80million adaptation of Watchmen in a full theatre, the excitement was palpable. More than anything though, it left me wondering whether this is going to be a production closed to the general public, for the enjoyment of the well informed and the fanboys only, destined to be nothing more than a cool trailer. Will it register with the masses, as similarly obscure 300 did last year? Can it break out of the fanboy box, the bane of such films as V for Vendetta and A History of Violence? I'll admit, it's a question that has left me uncertain.

DC comics, the publisher of Watchmen, sold 100,000 copies of the graphic novel in 2007.

In July, The Dark Knight came to theatres around the world accompanied by a 3 minute trailer for the film version of Watchmen.

Less than a week later, DC comics ordered an additional print of 300,000 copies of the book.

That figure has since risen to 900,000.

The trailer, with its breathtaking visuals and dark brooding soundtrack (a pitch perfect remix of The Smashing Pumpkins' The End is the Beginning is the End), left audiences panting, asking, almost in unison, a solitary question;

What on earth was that?

Herein lies the problem for the Warner's marketing department. As cool as the trailer was, it relied heavily on two posits. One, that this film is from the 'Visionary Director of 300' Zach Snyder, and two, that whatever the Watchmen is, it's an action packed epic on the scale of 300 and The Dark Knight (this association was planted in the mind of the casual viewer with the trailer's attachment to said movie).

Addressing the first point, there is no doubt in my mind that Zack Snyder is visionary. He has taken a property which many, including the great Terry Gilliam, considered un-filmable. The visuals are striking and the faith to the source material is quite unbelievable. Several blogs have posted shot-by-shot deconstructions of the trailer against the frames of the graphic novel, and it's shot-for-shot. For a fan of the graphic novel, this is nothing short of inspiring. The care with which Snyder has approached every part of this film has quieted every raised doubt, calmed every worried pondering, and silenced the ever cynical critic within. The trailer is a vindication of Snyder's belief in his ability to bring this film to the screen, in his laborious, almost anal approach to everything from casting to set design, from costumes to scripting and editing. He deserves the prefix 'visionary' and all the accolades that come with it.

This, however, brings me to my second point. Watchmen is not an action packed epic on the scale of The Dark Knight and 300. Watchmen is, for the most part, a graphic novel in which the characters do little but stand in rooms talking to each other. This is no attack on Alan Moore, who wrote Watchmen, on the contrary, but the point is that the trailer would have you believe that the characters are too busy kicking ass and taking names to converse. It's cool, sure, but it does little to represent the content of the graphic novel, or the context of the visuals in the trailer.

The graphic novel was unique at the time it was first published, for the fact that it didn't rely on thought bubbles to describe to the reader what the characters were thinking and feeling. Dave Gibbons instead uses facial expressions to convey mood, and his artwork is second to none. Couple this with Alan Moore's incredibly sharp and literate dialogue, and you have a graphic novel which broke with conventional graphic story telling conventions to pioneer a more adult, more mature, more respectable style. It contains frame after frame of silence, and in its many exchanges, frame after frame of some of the best written dialogue you're likely to read. The depth of inter-textual imagery inserted by Moore is such, that after several readings I am still finding new ways to marvel at the genius of this work. The finished article is rightly one of the greatest novels of all time, graphic or otherwise.

It would seem then, that Warner's have pulled the old Bait and Switch, an infamous marketing technique used when studios have no idea how to pull in viewers. It works just how it sounds - audiences are baited in by a trailer which paints the film as one thing, and are left floundering when the true nature of the film is revealed in theatres, as if the movie they came to see has been switched out. Jarhead, Pan's Labyrinth and Bridge to Terabithia are all examples of films with misleading trailers. In each case, there was marked controversy on behalf of viewers who felt they did not see the film they had paid to see. After the action packed debut of Watchmen, it would seem that Warner's might be attempting some of the same.

The film, being distributed in the UK by Paramount, is released next March. It remains to be seen if the general public will be enticed by the outstanding trailer, and disappointed by the lack of action as promised. Or if, hopefully, audiences will embrace the film for what it is; a compelling character study about the humans behind the mask. After all, Watchmen isn't a story about heroes. It's a story about real people who happen to dress up and fight crime. It's a story about getting older, about staying relevant in a world that has moved on, about feeling needed when no-one is asking for help.

The task of marketing 300 was similar in scope. A genre graphic novel with a relatively small built in audience, a story unfamiliar to the masses, and a cast void of major A-list talent. But 300 was never anything more than it purported to be, and its subsequent box-office success shows the strength of the campaign - audiences were getting what they paid for and relishing it. 300 had little of the expectation placed on the shoulders of Watchmen, and in studio terms, it also had little of the budget.

As its March 2009 release date approaches, Warner's will be amping up every level of publicity for Watchmen, and will have to decide how to tackle public perception and expectation. Should they decide to pull a Bait and Switch, they may find themselves on the end of some heavy criticism and suffer at the box office. Should they be upfront, and focus on the human angle of the story, they will certainly not be criticised, but the risk may be too great. They want another 300, another Dark Knight. What they have is a film with the potential to equal both, if they get it right, if they find the audience. For the moment, nervous studio bosses and marketing heads will have to keep biting their fingernails.

Will Watchmen be the success it deserves to be?

Or will it prove a very expensive way to sell more graphic novels?

As for me, I could have told you my answer two years ago when the project was announced. I'll be there, my heart beating out of my mouth, with the right expectations of what I'm about to see, anticipating my favourite graphic novel brought to life.

The fanboys, sure, they'll be sitting right there with me.

And the rest of the world?

I don't know.

Who will watch the Watchmen?