The Official MovieSet Blog
Watchmen sneak preview screened to online press
Thursday, October 02, 2008
I’ve been reading reports on various movie websites about a special screening that took place last night on the Warner Bros. lot in Los Angeles for Watchmen. In attendance was the film’s director, Zack Snyder, to introduce the 25 minutes of early footage. And the good news is that the reports across the web by my fellow online collegues are very positive and surprise, surprise, Watchmen might just turn out to be a great movie experience.
The first footage seen contained the first 5 or so minutes from the start of the movie. The story kicks off with the murder of a 60-year-old man in his New York apartment. This dude is The Comedian, one of this world’s costumed superheroes, and in his case I mean an assassin on the government payroll. After an unknown intruder breaks into The Comedian’s apartment and a fistfight breaks out, the Comedian is tossed by his assailant out through one of his apartment’s windows to his death on the street below.
Then the film kicks into the opening title sequence and we catch up with 50 years of alternative history, a what if montage of visuals showing what may have happened if superheroes existed. This sequence wowed those that saw it and it should open the concept to the average person who hasn’t been previously exposed to the ideas of Watchmen in its original comic book format.
Next came a sequence showing the blue-skinned character of Dr. Manhattan (played by Billy Crudup) as he sits naked on Mars reflecting on his origin as the world’s most powerful being. If I’m messing up your head by saying this guy is blue and on Mars, don’t sweat it, it’ll all make sense when you see the movie.
The last sequence showed two of the heroes breaking out one of their friends from prison. Nite Owl and Silk Spectre (Patrick Wilson and Malin Akerman) are running through the prison fighting off convicts and trying to make their way to Rorscharch (Jackie Earle Haley). I was there on the set last year when they filmed these scenes and I saw the actors wearing their superhero costumes and punching stuntmen. Every bit of what I saw looked awesome and I’m jealous as hell that the peeps in L.A. got to see what the finished product looked like.
Barring any fallout from the lawsuit launched by 20th Century Fox against Warner Bros., Watchmen is set for a March 6, 2009 opening. I’ll be there opening night.
Posted at 9:07PM by admin
