Opinions
Terry Gilliam on Zack Snyder's Watchmen: 'It Needed a Kick in the Ass'
I spoke to director Terry Gilliam yesterday, and while our interview will run much closer to the Christmas Day release date of his newest film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, I couldn’t help but ask him about Watchmen. Gilliam twice attempted to mount Watchmen for the screen (even going so far as to pitch it as a television miniseries) but could never make it work, so I was curious what he thought of Zack Snyder’s theatrical adaptation of the graphic novel, which came out earlier this year.
“I felt a lot of it was so good,” Gilliam began. “It got the look of it brilliantly. But it suffered from some of the things I was having problems with when I was trying to write a script. It’s too short. It’s also too long! It’s a very weird thing and they had to make so many compromises and changes. I was always saying it should be a five-part miniseries. I still believe that.”
As Gilliam continued, he echoed the prevailing critique of the film: “But he got the look right, and the Rorshach stuff is really, really great. I think I felt if there was any fault, it was almost too respectful of the original.” Gilliam laughed. “It needed a kick in the ass, frankly.” ♦
More interviews
- One Life to Live's Brett Claywell: 'We Told a Story in a World Where Most People Are Afraid to Tell It'
- Michael Shannon on The Runaways, Kristen Stewart's Sophistication, and Getting Picked Up By James Franco
- Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart: The Movieline Interview
- Emilie de Ravin on Remember Me and the Learning Curve of Lost
- Bong Joon-ho: The Movieline Interview
Lost
American Idol
Oscars
Lists
Obsessive compulsive: all topics, one link!
Lost American Idol Oscars Lists
Past Virtual Newsstands
More in TVLine
- Top Chef Alum Marcel Vigneron Makes Quantum Leap to Syfy, For Some Reason
- What's On: Doffing Scrubs
- Coco Continues Plan For World Domination with Documentary Project
- American Idol Recap: Who Had the Best Stones?
- Late Night Highlights: Betty White Showers, Hugh Jackman Croons Mandarin, and ConanGate Revisited
About | Terms & Conditions | Privacy Information | mail.com | Hollywood Life | Deadline Hollywood
Copyright © 2009 Movieline LLC All rights reserved.
Posted 04 Nov 2009, 11:13 AM
everything Gilliam says is true...it SHOULD have been a miniseries on HBO and it WAS too short and too long and sometimes TOO faithful to the source.
also, some of the casting was awful.
Posted 04 Nov 2009, 11:30 AM
Has anyone ever mentioned the Gilliam tribute at the beginning of Watchmen? As the credits end, a store front full of televisions explodes directly at the audience just like the opening of Brazil!
Posted 05 Nov 2009, 9:22 AM
The most telling post mortem of the film was going out to Santa Monica Blvd on Halloween. Who dresses up as the Watchmen? No one.
Posted 05 Nov 2009, 5:37 PM
There was a TON of Silk Spectre's on Santa Monica Blvd Halloween.