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WATCHMEN RULING: Where Was Larry?
I've just learned tonight that the Fox Filmed Entertainment brass, because of the holiday, didn't even know they had won! The New York Times' Michael Cieply was first to get hands on today's five-page written order issued by Gary A. Feess, a Los Angeles-based judge in the United States District Court for Central California, stating how he intends to rule soon in the closely watched case. I broke the news in August when Feess denied a Warner Bros motion to dismiss 20th Century Fox's legal battle over the rights to develop, produce and distribute a highly anticipated film based on the graphic novel Watchmen written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons. Fox was seeking to enjoin Warner Bros from going forward with the project and releasing it in March 2009, and Feess back then refused to deep-six Fox's lawsuit filed on February 12th. Everyone assumed there would be a trial starting in late Janury over the legal issues because Feess at an earlier hearing said he believed one was necessary to settle the case.
But now Feess has abruptly done an about-face, saying he has reconsidered and concluded that Fox should prevail. So Feess intends to grant 20th Century Fox’s claim that it owns a copyright interest in the Warner Bros pic. “Fox owns a copyright interest consisting of, at the very least, the right to distribute the ‘Watchmen’ motion picture,” said today's written order obtained by the NYT. (A more detailed order is coming soon, according to the court.) Such a ruling could screw up Warner Bros' plans to release the pic as soon as March. Unless, of course, Fox is just looking for a single payout or share in the proceeds, either of which Barry Meyer and Alan Horn will have to fork over once all the legal fuss dies down. (Warner Bros had a similar problem with the Dukes Of Hazzard pic because of Judge Feess and had to pay tens of millions of dollars to release the film.) Indeed, the judge himself advised both Fox and Warner Bros to settle or appeal. “The parties may wish to turn their efforts from preparing for trial to negotiating a resolution of this dispute or positioning the case for review,” he said. But if WB goes down the appeal road, then Watchman may not come out until 2011 considering the glacial speed with which the court system moves.
This is a case where producer Larry Gordon's hot property changed hands again and again since the late 1980s from Fox, to Universal, to Paramount, until finally to Warner Bros and Legendary Pictures which together went forward with the film. For some time now, WB execs have complained privately about what they say is Fox's "opportunistic claim," noting that 20th sat on its so-called rights for years while the property was developed by other studios. And that Fox even had an opportunity to re-acquire the project and passed. But 20th contends that it owns the distribution rights to any motion picture based on Watchmen and has held these rights for almost two decades based on agreements with producer Gordon and his related business entities. So Fox asserted claims against Warner Bros and its affiliates for copyright infringement and contractual interference. Meanwhile, the film moved forward. Warner Bros screened Watchmen footage at Comic-Con, premiered action figure toys, showcased the Nite Owl ship (photo right) used in the movie, and presented a panel with director Snyder, illustrator Gibbons, and the principal cast.
This isn't the only controversy that in which Watchmen has been embroiled. Fans have long argued whether the comic series can even be called a graphic novel, since it was originally serialized in 12 issues. More recently, according to DHD's geek entertainment expert, Luke Y Thompson (WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!): "All the footage that has been shown has garnered high marks from fans. But director Zack Snyder's admission that he's changed the ending has rankled many. The book culminated in a grand scheme to end the Cold War by faking an alien invasion, using a genetically engineered squid-like monster that generated a psychic shockwave and decimated New York. Snyder has confirmed there is no squid, and he's also been slightly dismissive about anyone who considers that such a big deal. The new ending appears to involve framing Dr. Manhattan for an attack, which on paper doesn't sound quite right. With the WB/Fox lawsuit over the property still not settled, and just over two months to release, that could be an even bigger problem than calamari tentacles."
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A report in Variety back when the judge refused to dismiss the suit said that Fox’s legal team wasn’t looking for money, they simply want to kill the project. I wonder if that was true, and if so, if it means that Fox won’t accept a cut of the profits.
20th Century Sux strikes again!
If they had the rights to Watchmen, why didn’t they make a movie based on it? Did they just sit on their lazy asses doing nothing with it the whole time?
No wonder they suck so much. Just look at this year. No big hit apart from Horton Hears a Who!, their only film that grossed more than $100 million. Has that philistine Tom Rothman been fired yet? That guy ruins every movie he touches.
Just accept whatever Warner Bros. is willing to pay Fox and be done with it. Perhaps a share of the profits? The movie is already in the can and ready to be released. It’s too late to stop it now.
eh, warner’s f’d this up royally.
Time for Warners to start a nasty campaign that Fox is keeping it from releasing “Watchmen” and hope that public sympathy/interest/anger from fans and Harry Knowles will overwhelm Fox (ie greedy foreigners) and force it to reconsider its options in light of the bad publicity. It shouldn’t be that hard to paint Fox as weaselly crapmiesters, should it?
It’s more common than you think that a chain of title gets balled up into a Gordion knot, and it doesn’t have to be on the scale of a “Watchmen” or “Spider-Man” where interim people feed on the rights for years rather than producing anything. I once had a teeny-tiny script caught in a minor skirmish between WB and U simply because somebody in Legal Affairs skipped a page of the literary license contract. The gentleman’s agreement among film companies, though, usually prevents this kind of situation: they agree not to swipe each other’s titles (even though titles can’t be copyrighted), they juggle playdates to avoid competition, and sometimes they kill a film in development if a rival announces a similar one. In any other racket this would be called Restraint of Trade. So it’s heartening, but hardly corrective, to see one company taking a Christmas dump on another one. The real heroes here are Judge Feess, Michael Cieply, and, of course, Nikki who bird-dogged this story and — for Nikki — have the skill to discuss it with clarity.
While “Watchmen” may have been owned and copyrighted by Fox, the cast and crew of “Watchmen” signed contracts with Warners and not Fox (and therefore the footage and promos of “Watchmen” shot belong to Warners). Having Fox distribute “Watchmen” will automatically violate the rights of the cast and crew involved — they can’t own Warners’ movie.
I really don’t see Warners levying appeals, I can see ‘em settling out of court with a hefty backend deal for Fox just to keep the movie on schedule and in theaters by this coming March.
At this point, this film needs all the publicity it can get. The most recent trailer clearly improved interest from the laughable first one, but it still doesn’t seem to be widespread. The graphic novel, while still the best selling graphic novel (which is like saying the best-selling Chrysler car), is back near its pre-trailer sales amounts and the sales jumps from trailer releases are much, much smaller. One million copies of Watchmen may have been printed, but they’re not selling that many.
There will need to be a major marketing push to fill seats for this thing. Getting rid of the ridiculous squid certainly isn’t going to hurt that effort.
On the other hand, I was wrong about “Twilight.” Laughably wrong. It even held together much better after its first weekend than I expected.
Comment by anotherwgamember — December 25, 2008 @ 3:17 am: “hope that public sympathy/interest/anger from fans and Harry Knowles will overwhelm Fox”
When was AICN last relevant? 2000? If AICN had any real influence, “Grindhouse” would be in top 50 grossing movies of all-time at the very least, right?
Maybe I misunderstood what you wrote, “anotherwgamember.” Was that a sarcastic comment?
What worries me is that once Fox gets their grubby little hands on the movie, they will cut it down to a PG-13, and they will chop off 30 minutes of the running time to make it “commercially friendly.”
I guarantee you. If Fox was making this movie from the getgo, before WB got involved, it would be PG-13 from the start. It would be 90 minutes long, and it would be directed by Brett Ratner.
Fox is the absolute WORST studio that could possibly distribute a movie like this. I bet they want to turn “Watchmen” into another “Fantastic Four.”
I hope there is a Fox boycott. They need to learn a lesson. When “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” has an opening weekend of $15M, maybe then they will stop fooling around and ruining good films.
Hey, Alan Moore said he put a curse on it… (and given the way Hollywood royally fucked up EVERY PREVIOUS ATTEMPT to make a film based on Moore’s comics, I don’t blame him!)
Fox deserves whatever they originally paid for the rights and nothing more.
Fox sucks!
BTW, the rumor in the comics industry since the lawsuit was filed is that Fox is actually using this as a power play in order to finally get the rights to release the Batman TV Show on DVD. The show was produced — by Fox — long before Warner bought DC Comics and the two studios have been fighting over it ever since TV-on-DVD hit. If this ends up being the outcome of the case, then everybody wins, IMO.
BTW, wgamember — comics fans greatly appreciate the irony of Warner/DC being hit with a lawsuit over the rights to the Watchmen movie because it was DC’s screwing Alan Moore over both the merchandising rights to the comics (20 years ago, including promotional material such as a button set) and a rights-reversion clause to the comics that, well, DC ignores that have completely alienated Moore from mainstream comics *and* resulted in Moore demanding that his name be removed from all movie derived from his mainstream work.
Aside: The From Hell graphic novel was not published by DC and, ironically, the movie, which *does* bear his credit was produced by, ummmmm, . . . Fox. (Although Moore probably disavows it now due to his distaste for movies of his work in general.)
Anyway, due to the original rights issues regarding Watchmen from back in the 80’s *and* Warner losing the movie case, it’s likely that fan backlash wouldn’t work — or wouldn’t work as well as Warner would hope for. Better to head it off at the pass by giving Fox the rights to the Batman TV show. And just the original Batman TV show, not all TV show rights, as Fox might just try to slip that one in under the rug and IMO, they wouldn’t be entitled to taking that much, especially after the ridonkulous Mutant X lawsuit they threw at Marvel.
— Rob
I find it fascinating that nobody, and I mean NOBODY, has picked up yet on how this is the SECOND time this has happened between Fox and Warner over a comic book project. If any of you have noticed, the 60’s Batman television series has not been seen on DVD, ever. The reason being, Fox produced the series but now Warner holds some sway over additional distribution rights.
Fox and Warner have been unable to see eye to eye on the rights issue on the Batman series for over a decade now and the Fox feature film from 1966 is the only one that Fox retains full control of, hence it’s multiple DVD releases. I’m sure that the studio is aware and quite frustrated over their inability to take full of advantage of Batman’s latest spike in popularity, all thanks to Warner.
Also, I congratulate Nikki on commenting on the Watchmen ending. There has yet to be a single feature film adaptation that was true to Alan Moore’s material and every film Zack Snyder has made took serious liberties with the original source. The ending of Watchmen is what made the book the crucial reading it became, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there’s far more going on than just a few small changes in that area.
Oh yeah, Fox will definitely succumb to a bunch of online Harry Knowles-philes.
Never mind the fact that they are in the cat-bird seat, they’ll definitely be worried that the same crowd that they have already offended by stopping with advance screenings will sign online petitions.
I’m a little baffled in reading these comments and the article because many of the points seem to be based on emotion and not on facts. The facts are simple: Fox held, at the very least, distribution rights to film(s) based on the Watchmen property. Whether they chose to exercise those rights, or fully develop and make the film or not is really irrelevant. What is relevant is that they had the rights, which they paid for at some point in time.
Another fact: multiple people at Warners messed up. Badly. The development exec who initially pitched the project at a development meeting messed up because he or she was so interested in getting a gold star for the day that he/she neglected to make sure he/she had good information, ie. that the project was really fully available.
Some might argue that it’s not the responsibility of the development exec to check for chain of title – that it’s the job of the business affairs department, and they would be correct. However, that argument misses the world of studio politics. Somewhere, sometime, this exec who was trying to get a feather in his cap by getting a greenlit project was informed that a project was available, and he/she pitched it to the development group as available. Clearly, he/she had bad information, so he/she bears some culpability for this fiasco.
And then of course, another fact: the Warner Bros. business affairs team committed what seriously should amount to malpractice in their chain of title search (the search used to determine who holds what rights). Among other things, this is the direct responsibility of the Business Affairs department, so the fact that this has gone on this far is ridiculous.
So…bottom line: for anyone who’s slamming Fox for holding up the project, you should really place blame where it’s due: which is squarely on the Warner Bros. end.
They might have had to change the ending for legal reasons. The original ending was quite similar to “The Architects of Fear,” an episode of the Outer Limits television series.
The editor of the book, Len Wein (also the creator of Wolverine), actually quit as editor when Alan Moore refused to change the ending even though it was pointed out to him, that he was lifting the ending from another source. Moore instead chose to say he was doing an “homage” to the Outer Limits episode by referencing it in the actual books.
If you acknowledge an important part of your story is inspired by another source, you can get away with it in comcs. Not sure you can in movies, and thus perhaps that’s why they’re changing the ending?
Either that or Snyder is just a boob.
Time to clear up that “Batman TV show” rumour right now; the hold-up releasing that show has NOTHING to do with Warners at ALL.It’s ALWAYS been about a contract dispute between 20th and the heirs of William Dozier, the show’s producer.(The reason the 1966 movie is out on video is because it falls outside of that contract; if this were up to Warners, they would have squashed that, too).
Warners??! They had similar situations come up at least 2 other times in the last 12 years! In 1997, they failed to secure the rights to use a sculpture in The Devil’s Advocate Theatrical ad campaign and were sued by Sculptor Frederick Hart and the Episcopal National Cathedral. Then in 2005, they were sued by the estate of Bob Clarke for failing to secure the rights to the film “Moonrunners” which was the precursor for “Dukes of Hazzard”. WB is clearly a studio that doesn’t seem to respect the intellectual property of others. They are reckless, from a legal standpoint playing fast and loose with questionable rights issues, and this time, they might have gotten themselves burned. Fox is just defending its legal rights.
obviously, studio executives obsessed with details and points overlooked the massive sweep of alan moore’s magickal hex on this production.
from now on, when alan moore consecrates his circle, even studio heads will reconsider foolish actions…
Sorry, but as sort of a “fanboy” myself, I must say nobody gives a shit about fanboys or what they think.
Just think of the piles of money that Marley and Me and Bedtime Stories will make this season. You’d have to hold a razorblade to a fanboy’s testicles (or at least promise him he’ll get laid) to get him to see that shit.
Fanboys are generally overgrown underachieving children who have adopted movies as a lifestyle instead of getting a fucking life (yeah, I kinda include myself there).
They make up about 0.01% of the total movie-going public.
Harry Knowles is a legend in his own mind and has no sway with anyone except maybe the manager at his local Burger King.
A “boycott” of Fox would probably have Fox executives rolling on the floor with laughter, and the same douchebag fanboys will be lining up to see Wolverine (not me, however, I just don’t give a shit about comic books).
This will be settled out of court, the film will open on time in it’s present cut, and none of this will have any effect on our lives whatsoever.
Whatever. Yeah, someone or some people at Warner Bros. didn’t do his/her/their job. That wasn’t very smart. But that still doesn’t change the fact that 20th Century Fox sucks more than a $1 crack whore.
Watchman is cursed.
Long live Alan Moore!
No wonder Alan Moore stays far, far away from Hollywood.
Zach Snyder changes the ending and scoffs at anyone who thinks it’s a “big deal.”
What an asshole!
Let’s change the ending of MOBY DICK so that the whale lives. Hey, a hot director can do whatever the fuck he wants to a script, right?
Sorry, George Glass, but you’re misinformed. The actual reason I left as the editor of Watchmen before the end of the series was that I moved from New York to Los Angeles and it was impossible to edit a book like that from a 3000 mile distance. I did indeed disagree with Alan’s ending — and still do — but since Watchmen has become the best-selling graphic novel/collection of all time, who am I to argue now?
– Len Wein
The best thing Snyder/Warners did was change the ending. I love Moore’s GN, but the original ending sucked!
Zack Snyder: Rosebud!?! F&*k that! I got one better!!
That is about as hilarious as scolding Neil Simon about comedy.
And the hell with the fans that initially drew exposure (and dollars) to the art (business).
This is as courteous as one KB who had total disregard about the fanbase several Comicons ago.
let me get this straight – snyder changed the ending of the best graphic novel ever?
i can’t wait to not watch this movie now – and any director so dismissive of such a plot change is an idiot.
Watch-ing Fox and Warner go at it over Watch-men is like witnessing two bald guys fighting over a comb.
The movie is a guaranteed DOA turkey because of hack Snyder and Alan Moore will be laughing uproariously into his brandy glass.
But I’ll say this for Warner…at least they occasionally get genre stuff right…Fox are just plain clueless, and are about to drop the ball on Wolverine. Karma’s a bitch, guys.
Please. It’s still the same damn ending, it just isn’t a giant squid. You know why?
A GIANT SQUID WOULD LOOK STUPID.
I don’t doubt that the movie will be basically just the comic, with a different monster, or something less dumb than a squid. It could still be aliens even. Or just something big and blue that they blame on Dr. Manhattan since he is an alien…sorta.
FOX has every right to sue WB. Would WB let go of the rights if it was in FOX’s place?
As far as crying over the internet goes… If Fanboys have any real power.. snakes on a plane, Grindhouse.. would all have made millions of dollars and movies like Beverly Hills Chihuaha, Alan & the chip munks… would have moved out of theaters in 2 weeks.
So stop crying foul and hope that the studios would come to a deal and release the movie on time.
Knowing Fox, they’ll get their hands on it, release a 90 minute version, make it PG-13, Zack Snyder will take his name off the movie, the actors involved will be dragged tooth and nail to pimp a shit product on all the entertainment news outlets and that will be that. So the real losers in this scenario are people who actually enjoy challenging material.
The first poster is right: As of right now, Fox has no interest in getting distribution rights or a portion of the money from Warner Bros. (and Paramount, who also has a toe in the film). Fox just wants to kill Watchmen, plain and simple. They don’t want to make their own Watchmen film, either. They just want this film never to see the light of day.
The comment about Harry Knowles was a joke. The fact that the Batman TV series is not available yet on DVD is a tragedy.
Yes, I do know the difference.
Oh, and BTW, the poster that uses the phrase “sucks like a one dollar crack whore” clearly hasn’t experienced enough one dollar crack whores.
Good job Fox! The WB were morons not to see this coming. The fanboy community aside, Watchmen looks completely awful. I’ve never read the graphic novel and don’t care to. Kudos to Fox for defending quality. Leave the silver screen for Marvel properties (and Batman) and stop this glut of indy crap from flooding the market and ruining it for the big guns.
Settle down people. Settle down.
Come March this film will be released in cinemas as scheduled.
Except when it begins it will bare the logos of..
Warner Bros.
Legendary Pictures.
Paramount Pictures.
DC Comics.
…..and of course Twentieth Century Fox.
Fox will then shameless start bragging that they have a great record with comic book movies by mentioning Watchmen right alongside the (first two) X-men films.
You know it will happen because it sounds like a money making solution for all.
Warners get their movie in cinemas. Fox get their ‘credit’ and a small back end of the gross.
And Watchmen will go down in history as the Hollywood studio feature with the most ’stings’ ever.
End of.
As usual, Warner Borg is correct.
Next up: “Quatermass and the Pit”
a long-sought-after Hammer Films remake that had everyone and their mother chasing the rights (except Michael Bay’s mother — he doesn’t know who she is..) however the rights are held by “joint-blocking rights” by 20th and Warner Bros due a tv deal done in the 60s…..
While FOX may have a legal right to do what they did, I question the ethics of their actions. But then again, this Hollywood, so I’m not surprised there was no ethics involved…
Seems like this is the 3rd or 4th in a growing string of failures by Warners’ feature legal dept, including Dukes of Hazzard
gotmyjd2003,
Very well put. The blame, from a basic standpoint, is squarely at the feet of Larry Gordon. But a studio, the size of Warner Bros, should have had the brains to realize that Gordon was wrong from the get go and never have started principal photography until the rights issues had been resolved. The truth that none of the fanboys like Harry Knowles want to acknowledge is that prior to production, Fox did, in fact, contact Warner Bros about the rights issue and the WB scoffed at it and rolled the dice. So after being blown off by the WB, Fox took the only tact they could. They waited for the most damaging time they could to file their suit. The Wb had their chance and ignored it. So Fox did EXACTLTY what the WB would have done if the situation was reversed. Look at it like this:
The WB owns the rights to Batman distribution. Some douchebage producer who has some sembalance of rights to produce a movie, pitches the idea to Fox. Fox greenlights the film. Before they begin production, the WB contacts them and informs them that they have distibution rights. Fox tells them to essentially go to hell. Fox makes the movie. Does anyone here think that WB would file suit to stop production and not wait until after priciple photograhpy was finished so they can inflict the most damage and be in the best possible legal position? If you think otherwise you are dreaming. You better believe WB would have handled this in exactly the same way.
So the simple truth is this, the WB fucked up BIG TIME. They thought they could game the system and got screwed. Now all the crybaby fanboys are calling for the heads of Rothman and the higher ups at Fox. Why not call for the heads of the WB team that thought they could get away with this? Why not call for the head of Gordon who the judge in the case basically killed in his ruling. Something to the extent of “Gordon couldn’t recall the terms of his agreement with Fox. And he refused to answer any substantial questions on the topic. As of now, if he suddenly recalls anything that might aide Warner Bros in this case I will sumarily dismiss it all given his obvious lack of credibility.”
So fanboys, take your anger out on the real villians, Gordon and to a lesser extent, Warner Bros.
The reason this movie is so long is because they have to spend so much time going through the studio logos in the beginning.
I was part of the original fanboy rave of reading “Watchmen.” The ending’s premise was, by far, not a big hit with anyone that I can remember — reactions ranged from “meh, but everything else was great” to “what a letdown!”. In fact, I’ve always used it as an example of how hard endings are — the longer the build-up, the greater the expectation and truly great endings that successfully tie everything together (or successfully leave them untied without causing too many death threats) are few and far between.
If Snyder can come up with a better ending that accomplishes the same tasks, I say more power to him. If it’s not better, well, that’s why they call them “creative risks.”
Besides, whatever he has in mind will, I’m sure, at worst be absolutely noting compared to the creative rape that Frank Miller just perpetrated on the corpse of Will Eisner in “The Spirit,” who turned a sweetly optimistic, deeply moral piece of work into an anti-humanist blending of Mickey Spillane and…Frank Miller. Eisner…who’s he?
MrJeff: Let’s change the ending of MOBY DICK so that the whale lives. Hey, a hot director can do whatever the fuck he wants to a script, right?
I guess you haven’t:
a) read the book
b) seen the film
c) seen the mini series
Just a heads up – the whale does live.
Mr. Wein,
I was indeed misinformed. Thanks for setting me straight.
And thanks for all the great stories over the years!
Why is it different if Fox had done this rather than WB? Because WB actually made a film and it looks like they’ve tried to do a good job of it.
Fox sat on it for years doing nothing with it. Yes it’s their right, and yes WB’s legal team screwed up, but this is where things are now and since a lot of people involved in the making of Watchmen are innocent of the screw-ups then it shouldn’t be canned.
A solution should be found that meets everyone’s needs.
Oh, and if Fox hadn’t been such a shitty studio over the past few decades, I’d have a lot more sympathy for them. WB, on the other hand, made Batman Begins.
From watchmencomicmovie.com on the screening of the first 22 minutes of watchmen:
“Reports of what was seen have been overwhelmingly positive and all commenting on how the new scenes show that this is not a typical Zack Snyder action film, and something with a lot more cinematic gravitas than the visceral “This is Sparta!”
Rodney Perkins from TwitchFilm.net, who attended this year’s BNAT, had this to say about the look of the film in the 22 minutes of footage that was shown:
The complex mix of effects and sets featured in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner immediately come to mind. This approach always grounds the action and performances, thus enhancing the believability of the narrative… Snyder seems to have made the best possible use of the source material… if the entire film locks together like these sequences, Watchmen will be worth every ounce of hype that precedes it.
AICN’s own Nordling shared similar sentiments when he explained:
…if I was a little worried before I’m not at all now, squid or no squid. This felt very much like Moore’s and Gibbon’s WATCHMEN with chunks of dialogue taken directly from the book.
Devin Faraci from CHUD.com, who in my opinion understands Watchmen more than any other entertainment site owner (myself excluded), said it best:
It will look and feel like a real movie. That’s a weird thing to say, but there are lots of people out there who… are jumping to the conclusion that Zack Snyder has made a Watchmen filled with speed ramping and flashy money shots. From what I’ve seen this isn’t even remotely true at all. The footage is stylish… but it looked more like a modern take on a noir film than anything else… Snyder allows his takes to be long, eschewing a quick cut style that many seem to think would rule the day in this film. The 22 minutes I saw didn’t feel like an action film at all.
Not an action film? This is what director Zack Snyder has been saying for a long time, but many fans just wouldn’t believe him. Maybe after these reports his stock will rise a little with the die-hard fans who have been some of his harshest critics. Either way, fans will definitely be getting a Watchmen film in March they will likely never forget.”
Excuse me for being naïve, but isn’t there some sort of written agreement between Gordon and Fox, and isn’t that what the litigation should be about? I can’t see why this isn’t cut and dried — an oral contract is worth the paper it’s printed on, especially in Hollywood.
To all of the childish fans who feel Warners is in the right just because they make movies that please them: isn’t this the same studio that gave us WILD,WILD WEST, THE AVENGERS,SUPERMAN RETURNS, and Joel Schumacher’s Batman? (And didn’t Fox make your cherished X-MEN films?) Never give a corporation too much credit for “caring about the fans”… not that this is relevent in a legal case like this.
Having attended a Q&A with Zack and a sneak of about 30 minutes worth of footage, I can say I’m really surprised he’s changing the ending, after vowing he wouldn’t “pussy out” to a geek who asked him if he would regarding the ending.
That being said, the end of the book in general is one that will piss off/confuse tons of traditional moviegoers had it been translated exactly (I won’t spoil, but those who read Watchmen know what I mean if you look through the lens of an average moviegoer).
Unfortunately, as someone pointed out earlier, fanboys make up a demographically small — albeit vocal — percentage of moviegoers.
In the book, the “giant squid” that kills Manhattan with the hope of shocking the world into unity is designed to evoke a giant vagina and anus–a commentary on a patriarchal society’s terror of women, as well as a sly, slightly paradoxical reminder that there’s nothing like discovery of girls to make boys put down their superhero comics and toys. (Or nukes, as the case may be.)
Replacing the “female” alien with the decidedly male, quite phallic Dr. Manhattan entirely flips the thematic point of the story’s climax. While I understand the concern about “giant squid” not testing well, this change makes me think Snyder fundamentally didn’t understand the story he was adapting, or didn’t care. Or that Watchmen, which is a meditation on the specific (often absurd) themes and processes of comic books as much as anything, is essentially unadaptable.