Director Zack Snyder Interview - Watchmen at Comic Con 2008
Zack Snyder took Frank Miller's graphic novel '300' and turned it into a visually stunning blockbuster. Now Snyder's finished shooting 'Watchmen,' considered the best graphic novel ever written, and he talked about it at Comic Con.
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Transcript: Director Zack Snyder Interview - Watchmen at Comic Con 2008
Rebecca Murray from About.com Hollywood Movies at the 2008 San Diego Comic Con.
Watchmen Director Zack Snyder
So is there really a three hour cut and what are you going to have to lose?
Zack Snyder: "There is a three hour cut. That is the cut right now. So what am I going to have to lose? I don't know what I'm going to have to lose, so that's what I'm working on right now."
How many minutes do they want you to cut it down to?
Zack Snyder: "I don't know. I think they'd be happy with anything shorter than I have. But you know, look, those guys are my partners and I want them to know that I'm out trying to help them, but on the other hand it can't not be Watchmen so…"
How important was it to have Dave Gibbons support you?
Zack Snyder: "Oh, it's huge. It's the hugest thing ever. To me it's like you know you want, like when we create a set or do something or a character design and Dave's saying, 'That's cool,' that's awesome to me because it just kind of legitimizes. He's the ultimate authority. I don't care what anyone says online as long as he says it's cool."
Have you been tracking everything that's been said online?
Zack Snyder: "Yeah, I do. I watch it really closely and I think that, you know, I've been actually really happy with the way everyone's been reacting to it. It's cool."
How did you pick the music for the trailer?
Zack Snyder: "The music for the trailer came, we had about four or five different songs that we were looking at that the trailer company actually had come up with. And then when I saw that one, the Smashing Pumpkins one, I was like, 'Yeah,' because I got kind of the whole what it all meant. Not only how cool it was, you know its relationship to that – all that stuff – and I felt like it's the perfect thing. Because if you don't know, it's just perfect, just from the song [standpoint], and that's kind of how the movie is in general."
Is it a movie that people who haven't read the graphic novel are going to understand?
Zack Snyder: "Yeah, I think it is. I think that, you know I've shown it to a lot of people so far that have no idea what the graphic novel is, and they feel like it's just some sort of crazy allegory about morality and these superheroes and how they interact with the world and their flaws and all that. I'm like, 'Yeah, that's right, that's it.'"
And they get the whole Nixon being in office?
Zack Snyder: "Yeah. Because I think the cool thing is that like when you see Nixon in office, you kind of understand the sort of alternate reality of the movie. And it allows a lot of the impossibilities of the movie to kind of be grounded in reality."
Having gone through it, would you have done it again knowing everything you've gone through up to this point?
Zack Snyder: "Yeah, no regrets. I feel like the movie's awesome and I feel like so far the experience with these guys has been fantastic."
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