"Watchmen" feeding off "300" spoils

By Borys Kit

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - "Who watches the Watchmen?" was the tagline of the seminal 1986 Alan Moore miniseries about a group of heroes investigating the murder of one of their own. In 2007, in the warm glow of "300's" blockbuster opening, the answer could be "everybody."

Zack Snyder, the director of Warner Bros. Pictures' "300," has been developing "Watchmen" at the studio since June, and during the recent press tour for the Spartan epic, he said he was aiming for a summer shoot for "Watchmen" -- even though it has not been cast, or even greenlighted by the studio.

Snyder's enthusiasm for the project spilled out online late last week when a Snyder-created image of one of the "Watchmen" characters was discovered embedded in a "300" DVD trailer distributed by marketing street teams and was posted all over the Web, causing a minor cacophony.

Youth-oriented marketing firm StreetWise Concepts & Culture was hired to run a campaign, using tactics ranging from setting up a community Web site to handing out Spartan condoms ("Prepare for glory," read the packaging). Inserted at the 1:52 mark of its DVD of the "300" trailer is an image of Rorschach, the hero with an inkblot mask, a trench coat and hat, with a gray city behind him. According to sources, the shot is a test image of what that character might look like. StreetWise knew of the insert but was asked not to disclose it.

Adapting "Watchmen" has stymied such filmmakers as Darren Aronofsky ("Pi") and Paul Greengrass ("United 93") and such studios as Universal and Paramount. The scope and density of the source material -- the only graphic novel Time Magazine listed among the 100 best novels since 1923 -- is vast and budgetary concerns were among the reasons the project was dropped by Paramount in early 2005.

"To do it right, you need a huge budget," an insider said.

Sources said Snyder's vision for the movie would have the project in the $150 million range. The studio, on the other hand, wants to keep it less than $100 million. Snyder's "300," based on another award-winning comic book, cost about $65 million to make and grossed a better-than-expected $70 million during the weekend, setting a new record for a March release.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter