Watchmen

The many-storied making of the film Watchmen evidently took another turn today. Darren Aronofsky was attached to the film, which I thought was brilliant. Now it appears that he has some conflict and Paul Greengrass has taken over. Greengrass directed The Bourne Supremacy, which was a fine action film, but didn’t convince me that he can do Noir Superhero.

That said, I do sincerely hope that whoever makes this film does it some justice. Hollywood has gotten better at the superhero movie (see: Spiderman I & II, Hellboy, and hopefully the upcoming Batman Begins) in recent years, but Watchmen is a different beast. For anyone who hasn’t read it, go pick it up. It’s one of the most compelling stories ever told in the comic medium, full of darkness and despair and real characters rather than archetypes (ok…we’ve still got archetypes in Dr. Manhattan and Ozymandias).

In a related note, I just checked the Wikipedia entry on Watchmen, and the director had already been changed. Amazing.