Watch Out?

[sdelmonte]

This blurb appeared on scfi.com's news page:

Syndicated columnists Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith reported in the Los Angeles Daily News that Warner Brothers is seeking lookalikes for real-life historical figures for Watchmen, its upcoming superhero movie based on Alan Moore's graphic novel.

Set in an alternate-universe America, the film is seeking actors who resemble Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, H.R. Haldeman, Ted Koppel, John McLaughlin, Annie Liebowitz, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Fidel Castro, Albert Einstein, Norman Rockwell, John F. Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy, Andy Warhol, Mao Zedong and Larry King.

I don't recall most of these people being in Watchmen. And the idea of a film that spends any time at all showing us real figures expect only in passing is going to miss the point of the intricately constucted interweaving tales Moore and Gibbons gave us.

Then again, I think that Watchmen is unfilmable. It relies far too much on the text features and the intertextuality of the whole comic.

Thoughts?

Comments

[jadasc.livejournal.com]

No, I think I get it. I think it's to emphasize "this is the real world with superheroes, rather than the usual Gotham/Metropolis fare." They're trying to give anchor points so that the audience has markers on how to react.

[osewalrus.livejournal.com]

Nixon and his cabinet were there. There is also an early scene, at the original Nite Owl's retirment, which I think takes place at the Kennedy White House. Einstein is seen, I think briefly, as part of Dr. Manhattan's pre-story when he goes into nuclear physics. Ted Koppel was not in, but would be a featured news person covering the news in that universe. Ditto Larry King.

As an aside, I recently went to reread Watchmen and found that, unlike Miracle Man and V, it didn't really hold together for me anymore (although I found it quite compelling when it came out). I think I find too much of it no longer tenable to me.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Watchmen would make a far better miniseries than a film, in my opinion.