Warner
Wants Us Watching Lots o' Watchmen
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| Hey,
kid, whatcha readin'? |
While
some of us were hanging out at BayCon and others had a barbeque,
the
New York Times broke a story long-rumored but now given
concrete plans. When Watchmen opens in theaters in
March of 2009 (oh, it sounds so far away), it will be followed
five days later by a home video release that fans will go
absolutely nuts over.
After
seeing a film that director Zack Snyder confirms is almost
three hours long without Alan Moore's brilliant counter-narratives,
fans can go to Wal-Mart or Amazon and purchase Tales
of the Black Freighter.
In the
original graphic novel, this subplot is actually the comic
book that became popular in a world that already had superheroes.
This particular issue weaves a dark story of a man shipwrecked
by pirates and forced to become just as dark as those who
wronged him -- a thought-provoking underscoring to the themes
of Alan Moore's script.
But
that's not all the DVD package will have. In addition to
an animated version of the most popular comic book in the
world of Watchmen, the DVD will include a fake
documentary -- an adaptation of Under the Hood,
the memoir of the original Nite-Owl, Hollis Mason, which
will fill in much of the backstory of the world once people
started putting on masks and fighting crime.
Both
had been rumored; this is the first time we've had absolute
confirmation on the plans. While it's a huge gamble for
Warner Brothers, and meant to be a shot in the arm for DVD
sales, it's also the only move the studio could have made
that had a hope in heaven of pleasing fans of Alan Moore
and Dave Gibbons' original sprawling graphic novel. This
way, for better or worse, Snyder will have managed to more
than just touch on every element of the original work. The
studio will also be releasing webisodes of the original
graphic novel being read aloud by actors, helping to fill
in any unanswered questions the movie might leave.
Aside
from giving us the whole Watchmen experience, it's
a savvy marketing ploy. The New York Times article goes
on to mention that this gives Warner a triple play -- Tales
of the Black Freighter, the home video release of Watchmen
and then a few months down the road a massive special edition
editing it all together.
Will
that keep fans from buying the first DVDs, knowing that
eventually it will become one epic? Well, first of all,
that last part might just be NYT speculation, or at least
Zack Snyder spitballing an idea. Second of all, ask yourself
one important question. No, not who watches the Watchmen...can
you really, REALLY wait all that time knowing you could
see the pirate saga and the documentary almost immediately
after going to the movie?
Some
questions just don't need to be asked. Well-played, Warner
Brothers, well-played.
Of course,
the Times fails to mention that this isn't the
first time Warner has tried this. Last year, they released
a direct-to-video prequel to the Dukes of Hazzard
movie, with actors even lower rung than Seann William Scott
and Johnny Knoxville. This summer, they will be experimenting
with the Get Smart franchise, featuring Masi Oka
and Nate Torrence in Get Smart: Get Bruce and Lloyd.
That video will feature a side story to the feature film,
following the misadventures of two CONTROL technical support
agents.
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