DAN’S MOVIE DIGEST 128

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Dan Owen reviews

DAN’S MOVIE DIGEST
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MOVIE NEWS

THE FLASH’FilmRoach’ reports that Ryan Reynolds (Blade Trinity) is keen to take thelead in any future movie based on comic-book hero The Flash.

Reynolds has apparently stated “I am the Flash” and hopes the screenwriter,David Goyer, who worked with Reynolds on Blade, will push for Reynolds totake the role of a chemistry student gains incredible speed after a freakaccident.

NATIONAL TREASURE 2The first movie cost a massive $100 million to make, but despite averagereviewed it took $318 million at the worldwide box office, so now ‘WaltDisney Pictures’ have agreed to a sequel.

Director Jon Turteltaub talked to ‘CRIonline.com’ and mentioned that thesequel should be filmed in a romantic and mystical country, and China is onthe top of his list. He is now seeking a screenwriter to develop a scriptfor the second instalment.

X-MEN 3Okay, so Britain’s own Matthew Vaughn is in the director’s chair, but whichX-Men are joining the team this time? Well, first up is fan-favourite TheBeast, then Gambit and Angel (who will be a woman).

THE RING 3Director Hideo Nakata (The Ring 2) has told the ‘Chicago Sun-Times’ that hedoesn’t rule out another instalment of the horror franchise, saying: “Iwouldn’t be surprised if there was another one. I’d love to do Ring Three.In Japan, I directed a Ring prequel called Ring Zero (right). It’s about how thelittle girl was killed at age 8.”

In relates news, ‘Moviehole’ reports that Naomi Watts will not return for athird Ring movie because ‘DreamWorks’ “will go off in a different directionfor the second sequel” – which could mean the prequel idea has credence.

STAR WARS: 3-DAt ‘ShoWest’ recently, directors George Lucas, James Cameron, RobertZemeckis and Robert Rodriguez gave a presentation on 3-D movies.

All four directors are pushing for a new-wave of 3-D entertainment to hitcinemas in the next few years, starting with Cameron’s upcoming BattleAngela Alita.

Lucas himself presented the first 8-minutes of Star Wars Episode IV,transferred in 3-D, before announcing that the original Star Wars trilogywill be released in theatres with a new 3-D transfer for the saga’s 30thAnniversary – in 2007, 2008 and 2009.

SPIDER-MAN 3Thomas Hayden Church (Sideways) has been approached to play a villain inSpider-Man 3. Sources suggest this could be The Sandman, purely on the basisthat Church would be easier to imagine in that role.

In similar news, the ‘New York Daily News’ spoke to Chloë Sevigny (AmericanPsycho, right) who said she’s trying to get a role in Spider-Man 3.

Sevigny: “I’d love to be in Spider-Man 3! There’s a villain in it who’s ablond, buxom girl, and I’m trying to get it! That [may] surprise people,since actors are always thought of as their last film or who they were. Ithink I’ll always be drawn to films more difficult to watch, but I don’twant to be a snobby cinephile.”

So who is this buxom character Sevigny mentions? Could it be Spider-Manvillainess Black Cat..?

WONDER WOMANThe Hollywood trades have all reported that Joss Whedon (Buffy The VampireSlayer) will write and direct a Wonder Woman movie.

Whedon: “Wonder Woman is the most iconic female heroine of our time, but ina way, no one has met her yet. What I love most about icons is finding outwhat’s behind them, exploring the price of their power.”

“When [producer Joel Silver] and I began discussing the character, Irealized there is a woman behind the legend who is very fascinating, veryuncompromising and in her own way almost vulnerable. She’s someone whodoesn’t belong in this world, and since everyone I know feels that way aboutthemselves, the character clicked for me.”

Whedon’s movie Serenity, a movie spin-off from his cancelled TV seriesFirefly, is due for release in September.

INTERVIEW – PAUL GREENGRASS, director (The Bourne Supremacy)

Terry Gilliam has been mentioned, it looked like Darren Aronofsky would takethe helm a year ago, but now British director Paul Greengrass is the man incharge of (arguably) the greatest comic-book never filmed – Alan Moore’sfabulous superhero opus Watchmen…

‘CHUD’ have interviewed the director, who had this to say in the first twoparts of their three-part chat… go toCHUD.comfor more in the coming weeks…

Q: You’re working on [Watchmen] pre-production right now?

    Greengrass: It’s gearing up now. It’s sort of about two months in now, aboutsix weeks in.

Q: What are you working on at the moment? Costumes and sets?

    Greengrass:It’s a bit like how do you fit fifteen people through a smalldoor simultaneously. That’s what pre-production is like in the early stages.How do you fit an American football team through a door that’s about twofeet wide and three foot tall. You have to crew up first of all – not firstof all, these are in no order of priorities, these are just the things youhave to do. You have to start designing sets and wardrobe. You have to startreally analyzing how you’re going to make the film. You have to startworking on the screenplay. You have to start thinking about casting. Youhave to start thinking about budgets. We’ve made a good start.

    It’s interesting the kind of issues that first raise their head, really.How do you deliver the Citizen Kane of comic books to screen? That isbasically the problem. It’s a bit intimidating to be honest. I believe twothings, really: I do believe, obviously because I am here, that you can makea film based on Watchmen the novel that is both truthful to the novel andalso works in two hours. I really do believe that, I wouldn’t be here if Ididn’t.

    The second point is that I believe in an odd kind of way that it’s twentyyears since Watchmen, give or take a year or two – certainly twenty yearssince it was set – and I think in many ways a lot of what Watchmen was aboutis very, very relevant to today.

    I think that those are the two things that beat most passionately inside me.

Q: How did you first become aware of the novel, and how did you become involved with this project?

    Greengrass:I was going to say that the interesting thing from my point ofview – I got a call in November or December, not that long ago, saying had Iheard of Watchmen and was I interested in doing a film. I said are youkidding, of course I had heard of Watchmen. But the interesting thing frommy point of view is that I’m not a person steeped in comic book lore. That’snot where I come from. It wasn’t something that – I didn’t sit as a childand read millions and millions of comics.

    I’m a Brit, as Alan Moore is, and Watchmen I read at the time that it cameout. The reason I read it is because at the time there was a lot of piecesof work done in this period of the mid to late 80s that were, due to thestate power, sort of dark and conspiratorial and reflecting the acuteparanoia of the late Cold War. I was very involved in doing different sortsof work then, but one of the things I did at the time was a book calledSpycatcher [available at Amazon.com here], which at that time caused a lotof stir because it got banned by the British government. It was a kind ofbook about spies and I actually wrote it with a guy who was inside our MI-5,which is like our version of the FBI sort of CIA type of thing. It wasreally an expose of what was going on. At the time that that came out, therewas a kind of fantastic prolonged twelve month period where it was a courtcase and it became a great set piece encounter – conflict, really – tryingto define where the boundaries lay between the government’s desire toprotect national security and our right as citizens to know what is done inour name.

    The whole Spycatcher affair became a great controversy over here. At thetime there was a lot of work done that reflected that kind of paranoia.There was a lot of drama done, there were films done, Spycatcher – andWatchmen. They were often linked together in the press, the zeitgeist wasparanoia. That’s really where I come to Watchmen. That is why I am convincedI can make the film, because I understood from personal experience themilieu that gave rise to Watchmen. I understood a lot of the references thatAlan Moore used. He just happened to be expressing that paranoia in themedium of the graphic novel, the comic book, where I and others were workingin different mediums. But we were all part of reflecting the same mood.

Q: So that means you’re not going to be shying away from the political edge.

    Greengrass:No, not at all. I think it’s very, very important. One of thethings that distinguishes Watchmen is that it’s about the way we live today.At that time it was about the way that we lived then. I think that we needto make a film of Watchmen that reflects the times we live in. What’sinteresting to me is that Watchmen, when it came out, reflected late ColdWar paranoia, and what was really interesting about it is that it was anincredibly bold kind of allusive, allegorical, dense, rich story thatinvolved the collision of two elements: a real world running towardsArmageddon – which is something at that time we thought was liable tohappen, with the great arms race of the 1980s – so you have at the back ofWatchmen this ticking clock, which is these footsteps to Armageddon, whichis really a Cold War formulation. The Soviet Union invades Aghanistan –

Q: And they move the clock ahead one minute. The nuclear clock.

    Greengrass:Exactly. And yoked together with that was this murder mysteryinvolving generations of caped crusaders. It was the collision of those twoelements that created the really great originality of Watchmen. What’sinteresting today is that we live with new paranoias, but they areparanoias. We are once again in very paranoid times, in a way that wehaven’t been I think – I’m talking about the post-9/11 world – we have beenin levels of paranoia that we last experienced at the time of Watchmen.

Q: That’s interesting because at the end of the 90s Watchmen seemed like itmight be a relic from another time. But like you said, 9/11 made it relevantagain. But on the other hand many people have said that they think 9/11makes the movie impossible to make because of the way the novel ends.

    Greengrass:I don’t agree. I think it’s completely possible, and here’s thereason why: I think paranoia is driven by the circumstances of the world. Inthe mid to late 80s, particularly young people at that time, of which I wasone, felt that the world was spiraling out of control. That there was goingto be a sequence, a dance, a series of footsteps that were going to walk offover the edge into some cataclysmic event. The structures of the world weredesigned – were so intractable, were so locked in a sequence – that wecouldn’t escape that. I think that today a lot of people feel the samething.

    Now it’s not going to be the Cold War prism. The world is no longer abi-polar world divided between the USA and the USSR. We live in a unipolarworld. But the dangers, the nuclear dangers today, are profound and veryreal. They’re to do with nuclear proliferation, the spread of these weapons.How do we deal with a world where these technologies spread? How do we keepthe peace? That’s what drives us. We fear Al Qaeda, we fear terrorists, butI think underneath that is a much deeper fear. It’s a fear that, in a way,the bi-polar world offered us curiously some security, where now we feelthat these weapons are spread, that creates challenges. How do we keep peacein a world where these technologies are spreading? That’s what I think wehave to use Watchmen to address. I think it’s really important.

    And I think that what it means is – and we’re engaged in a debate at themoment in this production on how to do it – you have to take the chronologyof Watchmen, and by chronology I mean what I call the “footsteps toArmageddon” part of the machinery of Watchmen. You’ve got these two piecesof machinery, the first of which is the murder mystery with the capedcrusaders and the various generations thereof, and the other is thefootsteps of Armageddon. What you have to do is take that chronology as it’sgiven to us in Watchmen and try to update it. You don’t replace it, you justsay “What would have happened if that chronology continued?” One of the mostexciting things that I remember distinctly when I read Watchmen when it cameout was this idea of a world that was our world but that had taken aslightly different course. Nixon had served three or four terms. Woodwardand Bernstein had been assassinated. G Gordon Liddy had become the trustedadvisor to the president. It was a kind of world turned on its head. What wehave to do is imagine what would have happened to that Watchmen world if ithad continued, rather than say let’s start with a new paradigm. It’s aboutbuilding on what’s there in the spirit of the novel. That’s what we’re goingto try to achieve. So you feel that it’s addressing our world, but you’renot losing the world Watchmen gave us. Which is the Nixon four terms world.

Q: Concretely speaking, is Nixon going to be president in this? Or would it be Bush Sr still in charge?

    Greengrass:I think you can’t assume that Nixon would have served twelveterms! You need to push it beyond there. We’re not at the stage yet ofhaving decided that, but the methodology is clear. You’ve got to build onthat scenario and develop it. One of the interesting things about theprojects is reading the threads online. Seeing what the Watchmen communityfeel and revere. What’s important to them.

Q: You just launched a message board on the Watchmen site, right? [Check out those boards here]

    Greengrass:Absolutely. Last night, I think.

Q: The Watchmen fans can be very vocal. Are you going to pay attention towhat they’re saying or do you have to ignore them to follow your own vision?

    Greengrass:It’s very important to listen, hence this being a very importantdialogue to begin with. The reason for that is this: We’re trying to make afilm. It’s got to carry a broad audience. It’s got to take Watchmen in asense back into the world again. But we have to carry with us the Watchmencommunity that has loved and found depth and to whom Watchmen has spoken forall these years. When you make any movie you have to ask yourself hardquestions, because you’re going to be eating, eating, breathing, living andsleeping the thing for the best part of two years. You have to ask yourselfsome hard questions about what’s bringing you to the project, what you cangive, in a sense. One of the things I said very early on to Larry and Lloyd,who are producing, is that trying to carry the Watchmen community is verylike problems I faced in a very different area in various films that I havemade. In particular I made a number of films in Ireland, about the troubles.One called Bloody Sunday and one that I wrote and produced but didn’t direct– Pete Travis directed, very wonderfully – Omagh, which was the terriblebomb that killed many, many people in the small community in Omagh.

    In both those films – in many ways I made them as bookends to a 30 yearconflict that, prior to 9/11, was probably the most important thing if youwere either British or Irish; it was central to your experience of the lastthirty years. Bloody Sunday was an event that really propelled the North ofIreland into conflict. Omagh, thirty years later, really marked the momentwhen the conflict became untenable. I wanted those two films to bookend thistremendous tragedy. Both of them involved different communities in NorthernIreland. One, the city of Derry for Bloody Sunday and the city of Omagh. Inboth those films, terrible tragedies had engulfed those communities.Different tragedies – in Bloody Sunday the shooting of innocent people bythe British Army and in Omagh the killing of innocent people by a Republicanbreakaway group. In both those films the communities felt that theyunderstood the story; they had a vested interest, they had a huge interestin the making of the film.

Q: You actually had some survivors and witnesses of Bloody Sunday in that film, right?

    Greengrass:Correct. And for me it was central to making those films.Absolutely central that as a filmmaker and as a production we built bridgesto the people who felt they owned that story. In the telling of it we soughtto carry them. That’s not to say that the films that I produced reflectedevery jot and comma and nuance as they saw it. You’re making a film andyou’ve got to speak to an audience beyond. But I always saw it as absolutelycritical to both those films, the success of both those films, the integrityof both those films that we carried the communities that had lived throughthose events. It was profoundly at the heart of everything I did. I can’tspeak to the quality of those two films, it’s for others to judge, but onething I do believe is that those communities felt that those films reflectedtheir struggle, reflected their understanding of what had happened. And theyfelt they owned them. Yet in a way those films also spoke to them and showedthem new ways of looking at these terrible events.

    In a funny way when I looked at making a film of Watchmen, I felt that theproblem was analogous. Here you have a community – a much bigger community –who feel they have a stake, in a sense, in this film before you even start.Because of the love they have for the graphic novel, for the fact that theyfeel very strongly, I suspect, about the integrity and authenticity in themaking of this. I think it’s absolutely part of our purpose that we strivevery, very hard to carry that community with us on our journey. You beginthat by entering into dialogue with that community. By trying to understandwhat Watchmen means to them. What it meant to them when it came out, what itmeans to them today. To understand what they may feel are the opportunitiesfor the film and conversely what are the pitfalls for the film. You have tolisten, you have to understand, you have to engage in dialogue.

    Of course in making a film you have to go on your own journey. You have toexpect judgement. But at the heart of this process is going to be thatdialogue. Will we succeed? I don’t know. It’s a journey. We’re at the veryearly stages. But what I want to convey is the seriousness of my purpose inlistening to people and engaging in dialogue, explaining how we’re trying tomove forward.

    Central to that is for me to explain to that community, “Hey, you know what?I don’t come to Watchmen in the way that maybe many of you do – from alifetime of studying comic books and graphic novels. But I do come to ithaving been involved in the zeitgeist that gave rise to Watchmen in my way.I was doing my pieces at the time Alan Moore was doing his. I understand theworld very well, from a personal point of view, that gave rise to Watchmen.”That’s really important to me, because that’s what gives me the confidenceto take on this tricky and bold assignment.

Q: Are you going to be interacting with fans on the Watchmen message boards? You’ll sign up and post?

    Greengrass:Absolutely. I can’t tell you when, but I definitely over thenext few days make sure I make contact, and make sure I say to people that Iwant to find ways of having dialogue. I want to come to events and meetpeople. We have had a number of meeting on this film from the word go – andI mean from the word go. Paramount and Larry Gordon and Lloyd Levin, whohave been producing this picture, have been absolutely fantastic aboutnurturing, supporting, filling with enthusiasm this concept. This is howwe’re going to build this film, with dialogue at the heart. We may notalways agree – you have to go on your own journey as a filmmaker, but youhave to try and carry people. The first stage is to try and understand. Ihave to find forums where I can hear what people expect, fear and hope for,and where I can explain what I’m trying to do and the solutions I’m tryingto get.

    And hopefully it lives beyond the film, where that community can have theexperience together with the film. And one day the film becomes just part ofthe Watchmen journey. It’s one of those texts, those iconic texts. It’sgoing to live for a very long time.

Q: There are a lot of things that are tricky, especially getting across someof the book’s imagery. Take for instance Dr Manhattan – his nudity isimportant to his character, but how will you possibly get away with ahundred foot tall naked blue man on screen? What thought have you put intothat?

    Greengrass:Some. Not all of our solutions are here yet. It’s a matter ofgetting the American football team through the door at the same time. Whatis absolutely imperative is that we have Dr. Manhattan and that we dramatizehis powers and that we have a character who people that are familiar withthe comic book will recognize straightaway as Dr. Manhattan. We have to beauthentic to that vision. And we will be. Now if you’re asking me is hegoing to be stark buck naked from top to bottom from the first frame to thelast, actually in the graphic novel he’s not either – he has a rather nattysuit on some of the time.

Q: And in some of the flashbacks he has a superhero outfit on.

    Greengrass:Entirely. But what I don’t think we will be doing will be alittle pair of jockey shorts. That’s never been up to discussion.

    In many ways the Dr. Manhattan of the graphic novel – when I read that storynow, I find myself feeling that Alan Moore was many, many things but one ofthe things he was is a prophet. There’s an odd kind of a mismatch in thegraphic novel between the world where there is this great power underpinningit called Dr. Manhattan and the bi-polar world. When you look today, we livein a uni-polar world. In many ways we live more in Dr. Manhattan’s era, Ithink, then we did then.

Q: That’s interesting. The Soviets in the book had no comparable Dr. Manhattan.

    Greengrass:This is my take on it, if you like. When the Wall came down in1989, which was the event that I think more than anything else signaled anabrupt change in the world as I had understood it in my life to the worldthat we now live in. It was that collapse from a bi-polar world to auni-polar world, where there was only one great titanic power in the world,and the rest of us whether you’re British or German or Japanese or whateveryou are you are but pygmies to this colossal power in the world calledAmerica. In many ways it’s one of the things that makes me feel thatWatchmen speaks to us today in a way because the character of Dr Manhattan –that strange mixture of detachment and engagement, that loneliness if youlike, that inability to make the right move is very interesting when youthink about the world today. Ultimately Adrien’s plan, vis a vis Manhattan,is an interesting thing in the world today. Manhattan is a very keycharacter.

Q: Is Manhattan your favorite character? Do you have a favorite character?

    Greengrass:You know, I honestly don’t. I think one of the main things thatmakes Watchmen very special is that it’s WatchMEN. It’s not Spider-MAN. It’snot BatMAN. It’s not SuperMAN. It’s WatchMEN. It’s this ensemble ofcompelling characters with human depth and yet archetypal definition thatgives it – that’s’ the genius, I think, of the piece. In a funny way I don’thave a favorite character, they’re all magnificent characters. And they allmust have their moment in this film.

    I suspect – I know it will be through the next twelve months, right up tothe moment we lock this picture, it will be a large part of our business:rendering the balance between those characters so you keep it balanced yetwhen you’re in a story you know why you’re in it.

Q: That’s interesting because I know that you’re in the “getting thefootball team through the door” phase, but are you giving thought to theidea of how you’re going to cast the picture in regards to giving everycharacter their moment? Are you looking for bigger names for some of theroles, or are you looking for more of an ensemble?

    Greengrass:The honest truth is that we’re trying to formulate a strategy atthe moment. There are a number of ways you can go with casting this film.What’s imperative is that you create balance, you create an ensemble. That’sthe fundamental thing. But there are a lot of ways you can go. We are at thestage of kind of looking at how that might work, and part of looking at howthey might work is analyzing how that community see it. It’s veryinteresting to me when you follow those [message board] threads, people havesuggestions and you say, “No I don’t think that’ll work,” but you know thereare many suggestions that I think are fantastic. Of all the footballers notyet come through the door, that’s one that has not come through the door.

Q: Has the footballer come through the door that has led you to decide howold to cast? In the novel most of the main characters are in their 30s and40s, plus there are even older parents. Are you going to cast in that agegroup or do you want to skew younger to grab a younger audience?

    Greengrass:I think that we will be not far off. I think that what’sabsolutely essential in telling the story of Watchmen that you protect as itwere the three generations. I say that loosely, I don’t mean it literally.But it does seem to me that there is the group of characters in theMinutemen, who rose and fell. Within that group you have Sally and theComedian. Then you have really three characters who emerge at a later stage:Rorschach, Manhattan and Adrian. And then you have Dan and Laurie who are abit younger, almost children of the Minutemen. They are a little youngeragain than Rorschach, Manhattan and Adrian. That’s the thing we need topreserve in our casting, that understanding you have of the relationshipbetween those three generations – they’re not strictly generations, but Ithink you see what I’m talking about.

Q: The novel is so dense. There’s no way that you could, within a two hourmovie, get every element of that world across. What are the elements of theWatchmen world that you want to get across?

    Greengrass:I’m not sure that I agree with the first part. I don’t think youcan fully reflect every single last detail, you’re right about that. But afilm works in a different way, I think, to the plates of a graphic novel. Inits way I think you can suggest depth of a different kind. I absolutely dowant, intend and believe that we will bring to screen a Watchmen world thathas depth and allusiveness. That it has that kind of richness and texture ofthe graphic novel.

    What I think is very, very important is that the world be real. That it bethe world that we understand is the world we’re living in, rather than itbeing a kind of romanticized Gotham City. I think a second thing that’simportant is that the world unfolds in a manner consistent with our worldoutside. When the novel came out that whole view of the world where Nixongot elected again and again, Woodward and Bernstein got assassinated, GGordon Liddy was a trusted advisor in the White House – that was a brilliantconceit. It was not the world we lived in but it was the world we might havelived in. A fact that we must and will get across in this film.

    I think the second thing that’s really important is that when you sit insidethat world our ensemble of caped crusaders, that you understand that theseare human characters, flawed characters. That they’re not superheroes – orthat only one of them technically really is, Manhattan. It’s that conceptthat you have a human drama that involves this cast of characters and thatyou understand where they’ve come from. That this is not just some casualthing that they do, they do it because they’re compelled.

    There’s something about it, in an odd way, that reminds me of One Flew OverThe Cuckoo’s Nest, both the novel and the film. You’re looking at a worldthat is of our world, but yet is very separate. You look at Diane Arbus’photographs and you have something of the same quality. I think that thereinlies where we need to go with Watchmen as a piece of drama.

Q: I think that there are three elements of the novel, and you’ve hit on twoso far. There’s the upfront story element, which is the murder mystery. Thenthere’s the political aspect. But the third element is that the novel servesas a deconstruction and critique of superheroes and comic books. Will you bedelving into that?

    Greengrass:Yes, we absolutely will do, and you are absolutely right, that’sthe third element. I think it’s important that we do it and that ouraudience, particularly the Watchmen community, know that it’s being done andenjoy that it’s being done and that it’s done on a sophisticated level.There you have, in the graphic novel, where the real depth and texture init, there’s a limit to how much we can do. But I think that we will doenough to keep all three of these elements in play together, workingtogether in appropriate balance.

    When you said the political element, I always call it the footsteps toArmageddon. Because I think that element is actually incredibly exciting. Isay that because as we’ve come together over the last few weeks I’ve askedmy team to watch a BBC drama made at about the time that Watchmen came outcalled Threads. It was one of those unique events you can only have in acountry like Britain on television, where everybody tunes in to watch thesame thing at the same time. Threads was a dramatization of what wouldhappen if there was a nuclear conflict in Britain now. And I’m talking1986ish when it came out.

    It was responding absolutely head on to the same sort of paranoia that begatWatchmen. But it did it not in comic book form, but in straightforward –imagine that in ’61, ’62 it was the Cuban Missile Crisis, but in the mid tolate 80s what would be scenario that got them to the Missile Crisis and thenlet’s imagine that they couldn’t get out of it. I hadn’t seen it in 20years. I remember it as one of those seminal audience moments in my life ofwatching something where I was horrified, compelled, just could not lift myeyes from the screen. I was watching something that was speaking to me aboutwhat was happening in the world. It was actually a very beautiful screenplayabout a young couple in Sheffield, moving into their first apartmenttogether. It was full of youthful hope. I think she was pregnant. It was setagainst this gathering international crisis that nobody took any notice ofuntil these individual dramas got blown apart by this terrible cataclysm.

    A lot of it was told in bits of news footage and newspapers. Told in theexact same way that Alan Moore tells it in Watchmen. It’s just at the heartof his story is this caped crusader murder mystery and at the heart ofThreads is this small domestic kitchen sink love story. When I startedWatchmen a couple of months ago One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest was in mymind and so was Threads. I watched it and of course the special effects now– it was a small television film and there were no computer special effects.That bit didn’t work. But the first forty-five minutes I found spoke to metoday just as they had done two decades ago. Showing the way the world canturn can be utterly compelling, and ask you questions. That why I believepassionately that we can make this thing work in two hours because we willhave a piece that will speak to our fears. And also show us some ways todeal with our fears. In some places in Watchmen that’s there too.

Q: Alan Moore has been very vocal about not being happy with the movieadaptations of his work. Have you spoken to him about this, or tried tospeak to him, or even just hope to speak to him?

    Greengrass:I hope to, I would love to. I intend to try. In many ways he’smade his position plain about the films. They’re not my films. I wasn’tthere. I wasn’t at the scene of those accidents. All I can speak to iswhere I come from, where I come to Watchmen from and what I would like todo. I couldn’t presume to tell Alan Moore it’s going to be great. It’sexactly the same thing as when I sat down with families who lost loved onesin the bombing at Omagh or who lost loved ones in Bloody Sunday. In the endyou can’t say to people like that, “Listen, I’m going to make this film andit’s going to be great!” You can’t say that. All you can say is, “I wouldlike you to give me the chance to show you what I have done and you judge meon that.” That’s all you can ask. You can ask to be judged on what you triedto do. You can’t ask for endorsement in advance, it seems to me. You have toearn respect with what you do.

    That is the same with the Watchmen community. A lot of people out there willbe sceptical about us, will doubt that it can be done, will worry about howwe will do it. All I can say in all honesty and humility is, I understandthat. I believe with a passion that we can do it, I believe with a passionthat I was making a contribution in my country as Alan Moore was in his wayat that time, but I was dealing with a lot of the same material and ideasat that time. I beg only that you judge me when I’m done, as I’m sure I willbe.

CoverWEBSITES

The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy(weblink)

Today is the 42nd day before the theatrical release of The Hitchhiker’sGuide To The Galaxy, in US cinemas on April 29th, and ‘Touchstone Pictures’has launched the official website.

On the site, you can watch a cool intro, learn about the movie, watchtrailers, view a gallery, get downloads, read about all the characters, playgames and much more.

Don’t miss the 360o views of the sets in the Gallery. There are 6 of them intotal in QuickTime VR format. In the Games section, you’ll want to try tochallenging Video Puzzle, Guide Match and Hitchhiker Trivia. More games willbe added there soon, so stay tuned!

Other features to check out are Marvin, who you can click on at the bottomleft of the site to hear his comments. Try closing him too to see whathappens. Also, there’s the Improbability Drive at the bottom right of thesite which you can click on and various things happen.

In about a week, the “Guide to the Guide” section will open and will let youknow all about the book.

CoverUS TOP 10 (CINEMA)

All figures are weekend box-office gross.

  • 1. The Ring Two (2005) ($35.1m)
  • 2. Robots ($21.0m)
  • 3. The Pacifier ($12.5m)
  • 4. Ice Princess ($6.81m)
  • 5. Hitch ($6.48m) (total to date: $159m)
  • 6. Hostage ($5.99m)
  • 7. Be Cool ($5.87m)
  • 8. Million Dollar Baby ($4.02m)
  • 9. Diary of a Mad Black Woman ($2.40m)
  • 10. Constantine ($2.33m)

UK TOP 10 (CINEMA)

  • 1. Robots (£2.62m)
  • 2. Hitch (£2.24m)
  • 3. Constantine (£2.09m)
  • 4. Hostage (£0.56m)
  • 5. Pooh’s Heffalump Movie (£0.16m)
  • 6. Boogeyman (£0.15m)
  • 7. Meet the Fokkers (£0.14m)
  • 8. Hotel Rwanda (£0.104m)
  • 9. Darkness (£0.102m)
  • 10. Les Choristes (£0.09m)

Cover** IN THE PIPELINE **

All the following are U.K. release dates, and are subject to change.

  • 25th March 2005: Melinda and Melinda, Maria Full of Grace, Wild Side, Valiant, Pooh’s Heffalump Movie, Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous (right)
  • 1st April 2005: Be Cool, The House Keys, The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse (London), Mean Creek, The Rage in Placid Lake, The Ring Two
  • 8th April 2005: The Assassination of Richard Nixon, The Cave, Bullet Boy, Sahara, DiG!
  • 15th April 2005: The Edukators, The Weather Man
  • 22nd April 2005: Tarnation, Sin City, Palindromes, Machuca, The Wedding Date, Unleashed, The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse
  • 29th April 2005: In Your Hands, One Love, XXX: State of the Union
  • 6th May 2005: Rubber Johnny, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Mysterious Skin, Twin Sisters, Kingdom of Heaven, Monster-in-Law
  • 13th May 2005: The Eye 2, Friday Night Lights, A Good Woman
  • 20th May 2005: Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (19thh), Saint Ralph, What the Bleep Do We Know?
  • 27th May 2005: Clifford’s Really Big Movie, Torremolinos 73, Ong-bak, The Pacifier
  • 3rd June 2005: House of Wax
  • 10th June 2005: Silver City, Screaming Blue Murder
  • 17th June 2005: Mr and Mrs Smith
  • 24th June 2005: Batman Begins, Wonderful Days
  • 1st July 2005: Stray Dogs, Madagascar
  • 8th July 2005: War of the Worlds (2005)
  • 15th July 2005: Fun with Dick and Jane (2005)
  • 22nd July 2005: The Wedding Crashers, Whisky, Fantastic Four (2005)
  • 29th July 2005: The Skeleton Key, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)
  • 5th August 2005: Stealth, Because of Winn-Dixie, Nanny McPhee
  • 12th August 2005: The Island, Herbie: Fully Loaded
  • 19th August 2005: Doom, Bewitched (2005), Dark Water
  • 26th August 2005: The Dukes of Hazzard (2005), Edison, Goal!
  • 2nd September 2005: Cinderella Man, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence
  • 9th September 2005: Elizabethtown
  • 16th September 2005: TBA
  • 23rd September 2005: Pride and Prejudice (2005)
  • 30th September 2005: The Perfect Man
  • 7th October 2005: TBA
  • 14th October 2005: Wallace & Gromit Movie: Curse of the Wererabbit
  • 21st October 2005: Aeon Flux, Sky High, Corpse Bride
  • 28th October 2005: Noel, Flightplan, Halloween 9 (31st)
  • 1st November 2005: Bad Blood
  • 18th November 2005: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
  • 9th December 2005: Underworld: Evolution, The Chronicles of Narnia: Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe (2005)
  • 14th December 2005: King Kong (2005)

All the following are U.S. release dates, and are subject to change.

  • MARCH: The Ring 2 (18)
  • APRIL: Sin City (1), Amityville Horror (15), XXX State Of The Union (29),
  • MAY: Kingdom Of Heaven (6), Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy (6), Star Wars Episode III (19)
  • JUNE: Mr & Mrs Smith (10), Batman Begins (17), War Of The Worlds (29)
  • JULY: Fantastic Four (1), Bewitched (8), Charlie & The Chocolate Factory (15), The Island (22), The Dukes Of Hazzard (29)
  • AUGUST: 3001 (5), Doom (5), Deuce Bigelow European Gigolo (12),
  • SEPTEMBER: Birth Of The Pink Panther (23), Legend Of Zorro (23), Serenity (30), Spy Hunter (30)
  • OCTOBER: Wallace & Gromit (7), The Fog (14), Land Of The Dead (21)
  • NOVEMBER: Cars (4), Harry Potter 4 (18), Brother Grimm (23)
  • DECEMBER: Chronicles Of Narnia (9), Underworld 2 (9), King Kong (14), The Producers (24), Zathura (21), Mad Max Fury Road (31), Die Hard 4 (31)

Page Content copyright © Dan Owen, 2005.

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