After 300, Zack Snyder could have done anything next and we would have been interested. However, he chose to do Watchmen, the Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons graphic novel. Now we’re not only interested we’re all counting on him.
Crave Online: It took decades to get this movie made and you’re finally the guy to do it. Are you nervous about how fans will react?
Zack Snyder: Am I nervous about it? When I made Dawn of the Dead one of the biggest fears I had was that people wouldn’t get the movie. I thought, you know what? I tried to make a movie that was like a cult movie at a studio and tried to make this self-reflexive that sort of understands its genre and sort of a love letter to George Romero, all the crazy stuff we did. I thought there is a good chance people were going to see this and go, “Oh this is a zombie movie, whatever” and not care or worst of all not even notice that we cared, like “Oh, it is a B movie” and write it off. So when we made 300 we were pretty sure that we were making like a boutique-y movie that some fanboys would go to, that it would be a fun Frank Miller romp. I was surprised by the response of course to that movie. When we set up to make Watchmen I think we kind of looked at it the same way that we looked at the other movies in the sense that this is what it is, this is the material, I love the material. I’m not going to f*ck it up to try and make a movie that is commercial or cool or what everyone would consider exactly what an audience would like or want. I feel like that is what we did. All those guys that go to movies and say, "What the f*ck is this going to be? What is this? Another super hero movie? Come on. I’m tired." In some ways there are no more super hero bad guy plots left. I mean, there are but it is going to get harder and harder.
Crave Online: How much did The Dark Knight help the climate for this kind of superhero movie?
Zack Snyder: I think it helped it hugely. I think it is an interesting counter point to the movie because it is a serious filmmaker with serious actors and a serious movie to be taken seriously by pop culture and critics and intelligentsia, what does it mean, blah, blah, blah. In some ways it is the pinnacle of what is possible with a superhero movie so it is kind of interesting that Watchmen sort of comes on the heel of that in the sense that I think the Watchmen blows that up again. It says now that you’ve taken it seriously and elevated to high art it is time to sort of take it apart again and re-examine now without a smile or a wink what the f*ck this mythology is about, why these are our movies. Why does this movie make a billion dollars all over the world? You accept that Batman can walk around in a real world and that a bad guy can dress like a Joker.
Crave Online: How did you go about casting these characters?
Zack Snyder: I cast them one by one. They are an ensemble of course but I think Patrick was the first guy that I cast. I cast Patrick because he was very Dan to me and he was very Dan-ish in the movie to me and also that there is a stylized aspect of the movie and that he was really able to get with that and not buck it. It is difficult to get everyone into a certain style. It is not going to be like verite. You don’t just say the words exactly as you feel them. That’s just not the style of the movie. That was a difficult thing and I think the actors did an amazing job at everything I asked of them. Patrick was the first and then Jackie actually sent me a DVD he prepared of a little scene from the movie he made. It was awesome. I want to put it on the DVD but I don’t think he’ll let me. It is partly him being interrogated and partly him being arrested and he did it in the living room of his house. So it’s got a super low-tech quality to it but it is super cool too. After that I was like I can’t look at anyone else. It is hard, you start to think who else could do it. I’m not going to tell you who wanted to do it. I won’t say, but super tall guys. Guys who were like 6’3”. I was like really? You are going to be taller than Ozy? That doesn’t make any sense, it is crazy. Jackie is perfect. The thing with Jeffrey was that the Comedian needed to be a man’s man. It is a difficult role because he’s got to be a teeny bit charming. Sadly, and scarily when we do our independent polls people were like “I like the Comedian the best” or “I like Rorschach the best. Those are my two favorite characters.” I’m like, what is wrong with you? The Comedian is a bad man. Don’t like him! They are juicy though. Yeah, he’s Denny and he’s sweet and he’s haunting Heigl. To this day he’s still haunting her. Billy is an amazing actor and I tricked him into being in the movie. That was well done by me. Only after he was hired did he find out he had to wear pajamas with lights all over them.
Crave Online: What was your history with the novel and the debate with the studio about adhering so closely to it?
Zack Snyder: My history with the novel is when it was first novelized. It was in like ‘88 whenever they first put it all together and bundled it. I knew about it when it first came out but it was one of those things where I missed the first three issues and I was kind of lazy in my comic book reading. So instead of searching for that I thought I’d wait. When it came out as a novel I said okay, I’ll read it. I guess it goes back to the idea that I wasn’t ready for it. I didn’t expect it. I expected it to be a comic book. I thought Alan Moore is cool, this ought to be good. He’s got some new super heroes, Dave’s drawing, this ought to be cool. When I read it the impression I got was, “What the f*ck is going on with these super heroes? They are crazy.” The feeling I got when I read it the first time was what sort of stuck with me and that was the tone I wanted the movie to have. That’s why you have Times They Are A Changing on the title sequence so you know pretty quickly that you are in for something else at least. What comic book movie puts Bob Dylan on the title sequence? That’s crazy. Rancid, Coldplay, something. Not that. That was what I had in my brain. Of course when they sent the script to me, I got the script for Watchmen and they said, “We think it is based on a graphic novel. This script is really interesting.” I was like wow, I will check it out. It was like a movie. When I read it I was like, “Oh this is a franchisable movie.” So it became about like the next movie in that series would have been Search for Manhattan. They would have to go and find him and bring him back. Like on the planet that he is on. Look, the studio has been awesome with me as far as making this crazy movie. I think they realized half way through the process that there wasn’t a version of Watchmen that I could make that they could make into a franchise and would be fun and kind and a good romp for them. That just wasn’t going to happen for them. I don’t know how to do that. You probably picked the wrong guy if you don’t want it to be Watchmen-y. When they realized that they were like okay do it then, go all the way.
Crave Online: They must like the idea of additional DVDs to sell with The Black Freighter.
Zack Snyder: I think there is that and I think they like the idea, 300-y idea that is a unique product in the marketplace saturated by the same old thing. Does that have value? A unique product on this scale is a difficult thing to conceive of. It is a thing you can’t go out to do. You can’t go to the board room and say, “Okay, we are going to come up with a different kind of movie. It is going to be weird and exciting and sexy and violent, people are going to love it.” That is not possible. That happens by accident because this weird stuff all lines up like the success of 300 and a director who knows the source material and it all comes together, these actors who read the book and then said okay, it has to be like this. That stuff is impossible to design and so in the marketplace it doesn’t have the stink of a pre-conceived pop culture phenomenon that they designed to be that.
Crave Online: How did you choose your music?
Zack Snyder: As far as the music goes, I love tone in a movie. Tone is more important than story to me. It is just the way a movie smells. It is the way a movie is. It is what you remember about the movie after it is over. Like when you leave a movie and it is like “What was that movie about?” “Well, it was about a bank robbery and then they found out there was a nuclear weapon in the safe.” Whatever it is, that part of the movie really becomes abstract I think. You really remember scenes and characters and what the feeling of the movie was. So in the music, when I was putting the movie together I went through tons of songs and all of my old music and old playlists. When I was drawing I had this on my music, I had pretty much the exact soundtrack that is in the movie. I listened to it while I drew and it was pretty much the process that I used.
Crave Online: Did you have to ask Dylan for permission and approval before you went ahead and shot?
Zack Snyder: No, we didn’t really have a back up but we were hoping it would work out. I knew there would be a title sequence with a song on it and I had drawn it with “Times They are a Changing” in mind but we had to remix the song because the original version is too short. That is a six minute song in the movie and the original is 3 minutes and 35 seconds. We had to get the stems from Dylan and get all the original tracks separated and then rebuild the song ourselves. We had to hire another harmonica player, a super famous harmonica player, I forget his name and he had to fill in a little bit. Then we had to give it back to him to see if it was okay.
Crave Online: What about the “Sound of Silence”? I heard that Simon and Garfunkel never allowed the use of their songs.
Zack Snyder: In only one other movie, The Graduate. I don’t know. They saw the scene and thought it was cool and let us have it. That is the kind of song to me, which is interesting, because Sound of Silence is the kind of song you think you’ve heard in a million movies. And then you realize it has only been in one other movie and they’ve turned down thousands of movies who wanted to use it. That is kind of the experience of Watchmen. It is something you are very familiar with, but on the other hand it is very, very foreign and difficult.
Crave Online: What about the Leonard Cohen song?
Zack Snyder: There are two Leonard Cohen’s because there is a Leonard Cohen on the end titles as well. Hallelujah, that love scene, I originally had the Allison Crowe version of that song, a version I’ve always loved, but in the end was just too romantic. Everybody thought that I meant it they thought the love scene was serious, not that it isn’t serious but her version was too sexy. So I was like yeah, I’ve got to go back to the Leonard Cohen. For me it is incredibly ironic, even with that version of the song it is incredibly ironic. I don’t care what version of Hallelujah is on, that love scene it is ridiculous, but in a great way. With Leonard Cohen it is like you can’t miss it now, can you? I’m sure some people will but that is fine.
Crave Online: Is the director’s cut going to be more definitively Watchmen?
Zack Snyder: I’m proud of the cut that is in theaters. I had to cut out Hollis’ death and that is a big deal to me. There is other stuff I left off that is on the director’s cut that I’m like, “Yeah that’s cool, but I feel like it works in the movie.” Hollis’ death was the big thing for me.
