Many years ago (in 1987), I picked up a graphic novel (comic book) titled “The Watchmen“. Along with Frank Miller’s intepretation of Batman in “The Dark Knight Returns“, Alan Moore’s The Watchmen led me to an interest in comic collection.
The Watchmen is a dark tale of superheroes, governments, war & conspiracy. In a nutshell, superheroes (ie Watchmen) have been outlawed unless they work for the Government. And as is often the case, power corrupts… and superheroes are not exempt from such temptations. All this in the context of a world run by fascist politicians and morally lost superheroes heading towards apocalypse. To a lesser extent, the themes from The Watchmen were even carried over in the recent Disney / Pixar flick “The Incredibles”.
The news that Warner Bros has now obtained the film rights to the Watchmen is exciting. I hope that the translation of one of the most influential comic books of all time to the silver screen would also become one of the most influential films of all time.
This news also fills me with dread that the silverscreen adaption of what is a great piece of work could bomb spectacularly – both critically and financially. To date, we’ve had mixed outcomes from superhero films. The best ones are clearly the first two Spider-man films, and to a certain extent X-Men. I love the work done on Spider-man and it deserves the best comic book film of all time.
The world’s most well known superheroes, Superman and Batman have had mixed outcomes. The recent Batman Begins, I think was a good outcome. One that I believe had mixed reviews was The Hulk. I thought that Director Ang Lee’s technique on The Hulk had some merits and the story was pretty good. However, it was not for everybody and the storyline was pretty standard comic book story. Then there are the bombs like Capt America, The Punisher, Daredevil etc. Sadly, my favourite comic book character Daredevil had been poorly adapted to the screen.
Daredevil, in my mind has all the ingredients for a great screen character. Miller’s run on the book and especially the “Born Again” saga, the “Elektra” books and subsequent limited issue runs on Daredevil. Then there is also the recent Marvel Knights treatment of Daredevil which I believe is doing fine.
So I look forward to The Watchmen film and hope that it will be a strong critical and box office success.