David Hayter Tries to Guilt You Into Seeing Watchmen Again

Posted by on March 11th, 2009   Filed under: Books/Comics, Gossip, Industry News
Source: /Film

So you bought advance tickets to the midnight screening of Watchmen and brought all your friends with you, and then afterward went online and told the world that you loved it. Thanks to people like you, the movie made an amazing $55 million in its opening weekend. And guess what? That’s still not good enough! Screenwriter David Hayter (aka the voice of Solid Snake) recently posted an open letter to Watchmen fans begging them to go see the movie a second time this weekend in order to ensure that more movies like it can be made in the future.

“If the film made you think. Or argue with your friends. If it inspired a debate about the nature of man, or vigilante justice, or the horror of Nixon abolishing term limits. If you laughed at Bowie hanging with Adrian at Studio 54, or the Silhouette kissing that nurse.

Please go see the movie again next weekend.

You have to understand, everyone is watching to see how the film will do in its second week. If you care about movies that have a brain, or balls, (and this film’s got both, literally), or true adaptations — And if you’re thinking of seeing it again anyway, please go back this weekend, Friday or Saturday night. Demonstrate the power of the fans, because it’ll help let the people who pay for these movies know what we’d like to see. Because if it drops off the radar after the first weekend, they will never allow a film like this to be made again.”

Here’s my problem with that statement: If you have to guilt people into seeing it again a second time, maybe it just wasn’t delivering what the masses wanted in the first place. Let’s say the hardcore fans do pay to see it a second time… then what happens the next time an uncompromising adaptation of a critically-acclaimed graphic novel hits theatres? They have to do it all over again?

It’s just like all the lame fan campaigns to save Firefly and Serenity. Sorry, but the mainstream support just isn’t there. Not everyone is as passionate about it as you are, and at some point you have to accept that. There are other, more economically-feasible ways to get the work out to the people who care about it. For something that never should have been a mainstream hit, $55 million is a pretty impressive opening weekend. Did anyone ever stop to think that maybe the movie cost too much to make, or that maybe this damn lawsuit is forcing everyone to pay two studios instead of one! Either way, it’s not my problem. What do you think, is Hayter right? Do fanboys have a responsibility to support Watchmen? Will you see it again this weekend?



  • Wow, this is pretty sad. The film had the strongest opening weekend in Canada and North America of the year so far. Sure, it didn’t bring the money people expected but I think they are forgetting a few things”

    1) It isn’t The Dark Knight
    2) It’s rated 18A or R which decreases a huge amount of people being able to easily see it.

    I won’t be seeing it again in the theatre, but then again I’m wasn’t a fan to start with.

    We’ll see next week what those numbers are – I think they will still be strong but with a family fare (Race to Witch Mountain) and horror (Last House on the Left) with wide releases this Friday there are definitely lots of options of what to see.

  • As much as I enjoyed the film and love the book, I’m too broke to try to fool the studios into making more awesome adaptations. If it works, it works. I think the opening weekend combined with eventual DVD/Blu-Ray sales will be enough to justify other projects like this to get off the ground.

    Anyway, you’re right there are limiting factors to the flick, Shannon. The rating, the fact that the “heroes” aren’t known outside of comics, the fact that people can’t get over a third grader mentality about the human body, the misunderstanding of the central theme of the plot, the run time; all of it adds up to a movie that’s too dense for most audiences. I didn’t like the Dark Knight as much as everyone else did, but what that had going for it was Heath Ledger’s death and the fact that EVERYONE knows who Batman is. Oh yeah and Batman Begins had proven that Batman movies could be good again.

  • Anti_Cool

    I think the main problem with Watchmen is not about fans not wanting to see it multiple times. They exist and they will see it many times in both regular theaters and Imax. The problem is that the movie was ultimately a superficial dissapointment that glosses over everything that made the comic so special. Maybe if he hadn’t been worried about getting shots of Veidt with Bowie look-a-likes he could have spent a bit more time focusing on the complexity of the characters and actually landing an emotional moment. I’m sure that the extended edition will be better. But once again, ironically, in a novel about people flying too close to the sun, Snyder and Hayter were out of their league in this creation and no matter how many times you see the movie, Alan Moore was right at the speed of film there is no time to appreciate what is going on. I’ll stick to the comic book and wait for the director’s cut.

  • Rusty James

    “Movies like watchmen”? Like what? There are no other comics / books like Watchmen. And how is the film, with it’s silly karate fight scenes ‘uncompromising’?

    Anyways, there’s already plenty of incentive to make a film “like this” with a reasonable budget and running time. I suspect I’d like the $80mil 2hr version of Watchmen much better.

    Save The Movie campaigns and big studios looking for a handout. Christ, it’s almost offensive.

  • Liz

    “in order to ensure that more movies like it can be made in the future.”

    Because the idea of adapting graphic novels for the screen is so rare these days. Please.

  • rus in chicago

    This guy is a dumbass and hurting his professional. What he should be broadcasting is breaking Hollywood of it’s need to have a tie-in with any green lit project. Believe me, there is plenty of developed MOVIE BASED screenplays that are far more advanced than Watchmen that aren’t getting the light of day because they are original works without a build-in audience like Watchmen. People can advance thought provoking cinema by renting, buying, attending more independent films.

    “Please support this film by seeing it a second time”
    “Please support this film by buying the first DVD”
    “Please support this film by buying the directors cut DVD”
    “Please support this film by buying the toys”
    “Please support this film by buying the t-shirts”
    “Please support this film by buying on-demand”
    “Please support this film by buying the happy meal”
    “Please support this film by buying the Art of Book”

    give me a break.

  • rus in chicago

    oh, and the only additional film that gets greenlit by this tactic is WATCHMEN 2 – without Alan Moore attached!!

    what a dumbass, really!

  • Rusty James

    @ People can advance thought provoking cinema by renting, buying, attending more independent films.

    yes. It’s getting harder for films to find theatrical distribution and audiences are less willing to go out and see films that haven’t been presold by some marketing blitz.
    That’s the real threat to films with “balls and brains”

  • swarez

    If it’s good, people will come again. There are factors against that, the rating of course and the running time, most people don’t have the patience to sit through such a long film again, The Dark Knight proved that wrong but we are talking about a totally different franchise and a recently dead super star.
    What I like to know is why these stories aren’t made for TV, where you have the luxury of time to tell the story and with cable networks creating some of the best “cinema” these days I don’t see why that would be a problem.

  • fatbologna

    As much as it seems a little cheesy of him to ask everyone to see the movie in the theater a second time, I can see where he’s coming from. After all the fighting they did to get it made faithfully it would be pretty damn disappointing to see it fail. The DVDs will probably recoup the budget no problem though. Fox’s involvement has really made this a pain in the ass too, as the film wouldn’t have such an uphill battle if not for them. I think that if you keep comic films specifically in mind then understanding Hayter’s point is a little easier. As much as I love the PG,PG-13 comic films I’d really love to see some of the more challenging hard-R stuff make it to the screen. VERTIGO is a very fertile ground for mature material and I’d much rather see a PREACHER film than another hundred carbon-copy MARVEL flicks. I think studios in general need to stop thinking that an event movie needs to have a $300million budget to be relevant as well.

    WATCHMEN was really great and the fact that the people who this was made for are being so nitpicky about it really bothers me. I can see where most of them are coming from, but Snyder seems to be taking a lot of flack for stuff that I guarantee the studio forced on him. they hired the “visionary” director of 300, so you know they were expecting some action. He had to bring that into it. The changes to the ending, ESPECIALLY the smaller details like changing of lines, whether the OWL witnessed and mourned Rorschach’s death, Dan and the Spectre’s desperate final love scene and the lack of a physical gory representation of Adrian’s world-decimation seem to be unfairly put all on Snyder’s shoulders. It seems to me that he was using the graphic novel as his bible and did his best to fight for a %100 adaptation. The studio for sure made him compromise on things and that’s very understandable given the material.

    I’ll probably not see it again theatrically(unless it comes to IMAX here), but I’ll surely be purchasing more than 1 version of the DVD when the inevitable double-triple dip occurs. I’ll always try to support mature genre films as well as indie stuff as the market is far too saturated with watered down “crowd pleasers”.

    Luckily for us all foreign studios have caught up budget-wise and are now responsible for some of the best genre films of the new millennium!

  • rus in chicago

    dude, profits are after expenses paid – Fox is in the same boat as everyone else. All Fox is doing is taking a share of the profits.

  • Ian

    Well seeing a movie is a democratic act in a way. This dude is just stumping for one he thinks is worth more votes. Nothing wrong with that. I mean it’s sad and kind of stupid much like watching a person campaign but so it goes. If people agree with the dude then they’ll see it again and if not they’ll see Blart or something. There’s no accounting for taste. I wonder who watches the tastemakers? And who enforces the trends?

  • John Locke

    Jeez, why did this movie cost $130 million? They made 300 in half the cost (65million). I can’t think of a significant amount of CGI used, I mean Dr Manhattan CGI would have been pretty expensive but still $130 mil? Transformer had a ton more CGI and special effects and that movie “only” cost $150 million. I have heard rumours that Zack Snyder has a 4.5 hr long directors cut to be released on dvd. If that is true that explains the budget.

    They made Cloverfield in less then $25 million. That movie looks like a $75 million movie. It was an excellent movie, it did not have a lot of mainstream appeal but still managed to grab a shitload of profit for the studio due to a smaller budget. The same is true for ‘The Fountain’ eventhough it did not make a whole lot of money it looks more expensive then it is. It is a perfect example of making the best of your resources and I just wish more movies did that.

  • “Is it Apocalypse Now? Is it Blade Runner? Is it Kubrick, or Starship Troopers? I don’t know yet.”

    -David Hayter

    Bitch please. You know it wasn’t that good. Well…it’s possibly better than Starship Troopers but I’m gonna have to see it again–ON BLU-RAY–to confirm that.

    Wait…no. I’m sorry David you’re awesome and did a solid job. Will you do the Solid Snake voice now? Please. Just for a few seconds.

  • Liney

    “If the film made you think. Or argue with your friends. If it inspired a debate about the nature of man, or vigilante justice, or the horror of Nixon abolishing term limits. If you laughed at Bowie hanging with Adrian at Studio 54, or the Silhouette kissing that nurse.”

    Unfortunately, the film didn’t really do any of these things. Although I liked it overall, it’s not half as clever as it probably thinks it is. If the idea is to get interesting and thought provoking cinema made, there are a lot more deserving causes that people should go and see before Watchmen if we’re talking about voting with our feet.

  • Roberto

    I wouldn’t say it wasn’t good. I do think it’s a memorable movie that’s quite stunning and imaginative. Yes, it was changed, and the marketing made it out to be the only comic ever made, but I think it will attract customers for a long time, if not for anything but because it exists. A lot of non-fans who knew nothing of the comic were not expecting such a story, or such an attempt to convey it. I could see something happening to it like what George Lucas did to his original Star Wars trilogy, and have new sequences and CGI worked in to get the story to what the comic was like. This would mean a new squid ending, and new insertions from the comic, such as the newsstand. This could be done for the DVD release and may already exist to an extent because of the full length of the unedited version being so much longer than the screen release. Whatever was edited out for time must be significant in some way. If they did this, fans would come. They should do this.

    David Hayters approach, however, is a little odd for me. It was plainly clear to him and The Watchmen producers, doing a faithful movie adaptation of The Watchmen, under 300 director Zack Snyder, and after having screened the movie and footage months before audiences and their knowing of all the intent of the production in the pre-production phase onward, what kind of movie was going to be released, restricted rating or not. The Watchmen could all have been naked blue guys in a hyper-violent movie, but what mattered in the end was the final story and how it was portrayed to the viewing audience. This could have started with better movie trailers informing the prospective audience who The Watchmen were and hinting at what the story was ultimately about. If you see trailers for 2001:A Space Odyssey, the Christopher Reeve Superman, Star Wars, Alien and the original Rollerball, you see how well they brought you into the story, even if you’d never heard of the movies or stories before.

  • rus in chicago

    I owe the Film Junk community an apology. I finally saw Watchmen last night and really enjoyed it! If you read the book and were entertained you need to see this in the theatre. I have a new respect for Synder as he worked his ass off on this thing – you really feel like you’re in the world of the Watchmen.
    This film is a study in textures, the way they created Rorshach’s mask, the large amount of money they spent on rain, the detailed costumes, the hot grease on the Rorshach’s attacker, way Synder filmed characters thru windows and doorways, the wide shots on Mars, all are amazing. He really worked overtime and pushed all departments to get the feel of the graphic novel right.
    I agree with Kevin Smith on the Slash Filmcast (yes, I cheat on filmjunk) that Warner Bros. needs all of our respect for green lighting this version of Wartchmen and what they did on Dark Knight. Like Kevin said, they are the place to be for kickass movies these days.
    I like a lot of the changes/omissions Synder choose; removing the floating segways, the hot coffee rescue, Black Freighter, etc. I can see how everyone can be down on the changed ended, but I loved so much of the origin stories I didn’t care at that point. What Synder should have done is make Dr. Manhattan more of an aloof “free agent”, than he is, that way the ended would have been stronger (more plausible). As it stands now, the Russians would think the U.S. and Dr. Manhattan are pulling a fast one on them and not be so quick to agree to a truce.