I have to admit, I'm very much looking forward to Watchmen, even though I've never read the graphic novel. I grew up on Star Wars, and have evolved into a minor comic geek. I don't collect them, except for just a few, but I do read them and enjoy them. Banky's quote from Mallrats would describe me. Something to the effect of "I could have taught you how to handle them, but you wanted to play Little League instead." Me, it was basketball.
Anyway, I hope this flick gets to the big screen on time, and based on this excerpt of an open letter from Watchmen producer Lloyd Levin, it should. Any reasonable judge would dismiss this case right away, assuming these facts can be backed up. And I think it's obvious that FOX doesn't have a clue about what the comic loving public likes, thus their cancellation of anything Joss Whedon does. But that's another rant for another day. Here's the excerpt:
Both Fox and Warner Brothers were offered the chance to make Watchmen. They were submitted the same package, at the same time. It included a cover letter describing the project and its history, budget information, a screenplay, the graphic novel, and it made mention that a top director was involved.
And it's at this point, where the response from both parties could not have been more radically different.
The response we got from Fox was a flat "pass." That's it. An internal Fox email documents that executives there felt the script was one of the most unintelligible pieces of shit they had read in years. Conversely, Warner Brothers called us after having read the script and said they were interested in the movie - yes, they were unsure of the screenplay, and had many questions, but wanted to set a meeting to discuss the project, which they promptly did. Did anyone at Fox ask to meet on the movie? No. Did anyone at Fox express any interest in the movie? No. Express even the slightest interest in the movie? Or the graphic novel? No.
Now here's the part that has to be fully appreciated, if for nothing more than providing insight into producing movies in Hollywood: The Watchmen script was way above the norm in length, near 150 pages, meaning the film could clock in at close to 3 hours, the movie would not only be R rated but a hard R - for graphic violence and explicit sex - would feature no stars, and had a budget north of $100M. We also asked Warner Brothers to support an additional 1 to 1.5 hours of content incurring additional cost that would tie in with the movie but only be featured in DVD iterations of the film. Warners supported the whole package and I cannot begin to emphasize how ballsy and unprecedented a move this was on the part of a major Hollywood studio. Unheard of. And would another studio in Hollywood, let alone a studio that didn't show one shred of interest in the movie, not one, have taken such a risk? Would they ever have made such a commitment, a commitment to a film that defied all conventional wisdom?
