News-Record.com

Well, the shoot for the film version of the classic graphic novel Watchmen has officially wrapped. The film is slated for release one year from today, March 6 2009.

Director Zack Snyder (300) has posted some cast photos which include costumed versions of The Comedian, Rorschach, Nite Owl, Ozymandias and the Silk Spectre.

I think Rorschach (the psychopathic character based on The Question) looks properly ominous.

This one of The Comedian seems a little Joel Schumacher-directing-Batman to me.

And this one of Ozymandias just totally jumps the shark.

I know I shouldn't expect subtlety and nuance from the guy who gave us 300 -- but Alan Moore is not exactly Frank Miller. Different writer, different stuff, different tone and sensibility needed.

Looks like Dave Gibbons, the artist who co-create the universe with Moore, is pleased with the production, though. I should really reserve judgment until I've seen the finished product.

For those coming in late: Watchmen, Alan Moore's epic deconstruction of the Superhero genre, has been stumbling its way to the screen for 20 years. The comic is consistently hailed as one of the best graphic stories ever told and helped give birth to a darker, more serious tone in superhero comics (which Moore later tried to dismantle with the "pop comics" of his America's Best Comics line). It also made Time magazine's list of All-Time Top 100 Novels alongside Catch-22 and To Kill a Mockingbird. Not too shabby.

Moore is famously critical of films of his work (and who could blame him the way it's been screwed up -- "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" and "From Hell"). He was happy to essentially stay quiet about the film version of V For Vendetta until the producers began telling people he approved of and liked it. He's gone back and forth for years between not really caring if they made films out of his stories and actively opposing it.

Too soon to tell if this one will tick him off.