“Watchmen,” which opens on March 6, begins with a scene depicted only in fragments in the comics: a lengthy fight between an unknown assailant and an over-the-hill avenger called the Comedian. This is followed by an unhurried opening credit sequence, largely of Snyder’s invention, that juxtaposes Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’” with a montage of masked do-gooders with names like Dollar Bill and Hooded Justice as they participate in key moments of atomic-age history, like V-J Day and the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The scenes that follow will be familiar to readers with a panel-by-panel familiarity with the comic: the surreal dream of a costumed vigilante who is plagued by sexual shortcomings and fears of nuclear war; a man-god created in a scientific accident, strolling the red sands of Mars; the city of New York partly annihilated by a villain’s master plan -- all connected by a story about heroes who are corrupted by the darkness they cannot expunge from the world.
Almost from the moment that the first issue of “Watchmen” was published in America as a limited series by DC Comics in 1986, Hollywood has tried and failed to film it. The director Terry Gilliam pursued the project in the late 1980s, only to conclude that it could not be condensed into a movie; Darren Aronofsky set it aside in 2004 to make “The Fountain,” and Paul Greengrass had the plug pulled on his version in 2005 over budgetary concerns.
When Snyder, 42, was approached in 2006 to direct the film, his résumé made many “Watchmen” fans nervous. A director of TV commercials, he was known for flashy and hyperkinetic work. In 2004 he had scored a hit with his remake of the George A. Romero zombie movie “Dawn of the Dead” and was at work on an unheralded action movie called “300,” a violent adaptation of Frank Miller’s graphic novel about the ancient battle of Thermopylae.
Warner Brothers did not hesitate to give Snyder the resources he wanted, largely because of “300.” “They said, ‘OK, we don’t understand “300,” and it made a lot of money,’” Snyder said.
Those resources meant that he was able to spend more than 100 days shooting in Vancouver, to cast more for acting chops than for box-office magnetism (Patrick Wilson as the impotent Nite Owl, Jackie Earle Haley as the unstable Rorschach, Billy Crudup as Dr. Manhattan) and have some 200 sets constructed for the movie.
Days before shooting was completed last February, the “Watchmen” curse seemed to strike. Fox, which had advised Warner Brothers that it still owned a portion of the rights to “Watchmen,” filed a suit and threatened an injunction to block the film’s release. A year of legal wrangling followed. It ended last month, when Warner agreed to give Fox up to 8.5 percent of the gross receipts of the film, or any sequels or spinoffs.
Now, with the release of “Watchmen” imminent, the anticipation and tension among fans is at its peak. Unlike, say, the Batman or Superman franchises, whose titular heroes can be reinvented every 10 or 15 years, “Watchmen” has only one story to tell. If Snyder bungles it, no director will have a second chance at it
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