Brad riddled me this the other night: Is Watchmen the next 300? Oh God, I hope not. However, that response erupted without even considering how one would define Watchmen as the next 300. No matter how you map it the answer always pinwheels off director Zack Snyder. The director of 300 adapts another graphic novel as his follow up. Easy headline.
If you expect Snyder to deliver another frame-faithful adaptation of a graphic novel, then yes, Watchmen is the next 300. Pretty much what you saw in 300 was what you got in the graphic novel, with the exception of the back-home politics subplot – which actually improved upon the source material. From all accounts and shown footage, there’s no doubt Snyder’s Watchmen treats Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon’s work as God’s word.
The recent trailer indicates this could work out well for the film. However, we’ll see once the final product arrives. After all, Snyder’s dogged fidelity to Frank Miller’s “300” had its positives (fantastic imagery), but it also carved the deepest flaws into the film (too much reliance on Miller’s cock-and-balls brawny dialogue, which always reads better than it sounds aloud).
However, whether Snyder conjures an ultra faithful adaptation is a rather superficial reason to call Watchmen the next 300. Although some probably labeled 300 as the next Sin City under the same rationale – coupled with the Miller connection too, I guess (yet, I’ve noticed no one hailing The Spirit as the next Sin City or 300… go figure).
The 300/Watchmen comparison mainly stems from an expectation of another Snyder slow-mo eye-candy orgy. I doubt anyone who’s seen the Watchmen footage judges the film as visually flat. Hell, I’ll get flowery about it. Watchmen looks beautiful, but in a much different way than 300. And this is the big selling point Warner Bros. plans to blast every non-fanboy, normal citizen out there with (the teaser even perked my mom’s interest). It’s the same marketing strategy used for 300: You’d be a fool to miss something this cool looking, and it worked brilliantly.
If Warner Bros. keeps its product highly visible for the next four months by carpet bombing the Internet and TV with ads of nifty images cut to moody music, I expect a hefty opening weekend. Other than Snyder’s visuals, Watchmen‘s box-office take can also tie the comparison together. If it opens big big big, then expect every story lede to connect the dots by including the words 300, R-rated, Zack Snyder and “visually arresting” (or something along those lines). However, the one difference most will ignore is that 300‘s zillion-dollar opening weekend shocked the hell out of box-office oracles. And my guess is that most forecasters expect Watchmen to tow in a hefty haul over its first weekend.
Yet, I’m willing to lay down a bet that Watchmen‘s final tally doesn’t reach 300‘s. 300 was a movie geared towards meat-head mentality. Action. Decapitation. Hot women and buff men. The trailers for Watchmen promise action by the minute, but if the movie is faithful to the source material, then the advertising is probably misleading. There’s not a whole lot of action scenes in the graphic novel. Now, I’m sure Snyder beefed up the ones that do exist. Yet, this is a 2 hour, 40 minute long epic of rounded characters, profound ideas, and layers of subtext (again, assuming it nails the graphic novel correctly). Simply put: Expect more scenes of sustained dialogue than nonstop violence. Sure the meat-heads and your average “I ♥ Twilight” filmgoers will flock to Watchmen on opening weekend because of the “extremely phat-awesome” visuals, yo. Yet, once they get wind of the fact the film contains story and characters cushioned by only a few action set-pieces, the following weeks’ receipts will probably drop off like Martin Sheen from a condemned building.
However, that circles back to my reasoning for why I hope Watchmen isn’t the next 300. Because if it is, then for me it means Snyder dropped another entertaining, visually masterful, but completely hollow film on us. That’s the only lens I view this comparison through. And I don’t want Watchmen to twist and morph into a vacuous, easily consumable film for the public. It’s a challenging book and its cinematic translation needs to follow suit. 300 was a dumb (but entertaining) flick catering to the base moviegoer and those sad-sacks who who still jerk off to The Matrix. It’s a frat film. Watchmen needs to avoid that at all costs. And with a little luck it will never succeed at becoming the next 300.
Now, Brad has weighed in with his take on the same question right here, go give his a read and don’t forget to add your opinion in the comments below.
