Zack Snyder and Quint have a brief conversation about WATCHMEN! Pirate storyline! Rorschach! More!!!!

Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. I was one of the select few who was granted a one on one interview with Zack Snyder. I think Devin from CHUD snagged one as well, but one of the concessions of doing a 1:1 instead of a roundtable interview was that I only had about 5 minutes. Luckily for me, Snyder’s excited about this project and loves to talk, so I was able to squeeze out a few more minutes with a little conversational final question. Enjoy and look out for the sound-o-text links!!!


Quint: So, you’ve come a long way since BUTT-NUMB-A-THON.

Zack Snyder: Yes indeed. Yes indeed.

Quint: Actually, we were sitting in this room talking about WATCHMEN last year at COMIC-CON. Now you have a cast.

Zack Snyder: Now I have a cast. I’ve got some sets built. I keep trying to make them spend money, because I figure the deeper in they are they can’t go back. (laughs)

Quint: That’s right. My two biggest concerns were addressed in the Q&A… about the period and the pirate story. The pirate story in particular… I can see that being the most obvious…h2>

Zack Snyder: Cut…

Quint: Yeah, but it means so much to the story.

Zack Snyder: Absolutely and I feel the same way. It’s funny, because you know one of the biggest proponents of the pirate story is Debbie, my wife. She fights for it, because basically I’m in production and because we’re trying to figure out who’s going to pay for the pirate story… is it going to be marketing… is it going to be home video… I think the studio’s approach right now is like “look, we’re spending too much for this movie anyway, because we don’t even know who’s going to go see it…” and so…

Quint: One thing that the studio’s aren’t doing, and this is a big argument, like the HARRY POTTER fans are saying, “there’s so much material in these books and you’re only shooting a feature, but why don’t you do something like Peter Jackson did with LORD OF THE RINGS and you have the expanded DVD?”

Zack Snyder: Not to mention the fact that I think Peter also… because when he releases a DVD, the movie’s an hour longer... It’s not like “Oh… some bonus material…” It’s like another movie, which is kind of how I’ve been trying to go with the studio and saying “look, even if the pirate movie, the pirate part of the story exists on DVD only…”

Quint: And you can plan for it going in, so you can shoot it to integrate seamlessly.

Zack Snyder: We’ve done that. I’ve got the script that gets it in and out. I have all of the ends and outs (written). I have all the stuff and it’s not like it’s hard for us to do, so they’re really quite interested in it. It was funny, because the original script… you know, I was trying to get the pirates story as small as I could, because I felt like it was palpable, but now they’re like “It could be a little bit more.” I’m like, “Yeah there’s plenty more.” I was actually, and I don’t know if we will do it since I haven’t talked to him about it yet, but I was going to try to get Dave [Gibbons] to pen the rest of it.

Quint: Oh yeah?

Zack Snyder: Because if you’ve ever seen… Have you ever seen it laid out? Some guy took the pirates story and just made it’s own comic and used every piece of voice over as a separate panel and kind of put it together and it’s cool, because it’s missing a lot of course, but it could easily be…

Quint: Filled in… That’s awesome… Well Gibbons’ poster was great.

Zack Snyder: He did a good job.

Quint: I love that it’s just a cover.

Zack Snyder: Yeah, just a cover.

Quint: Just a new cover.

Zack Snyder: When Dave and I talked about it, we went back and forth about it a little bit and he sent me a couple and I’d send them back and go “what about this?” and “oh I want to see that ‘God is real and he’s American’.” He just kept messing with it and when he got it colored, we were like “oh my god, it looks like a cover…”

Quint: So how long are they going to let you make this thing? Do you know?

Zack Snyder: I shoot from the 17th of September to the end of February, so it’s quite a long shoot. It’s like a hundred days.

Quint: How long for the finished product?

Zack Snyder: I don’t know. I don’t know. We have a script, right? Then when I draw the movie over, I change the whole thing around. I just do… you can’t help it. I’m drawing and I’m like… because I have the graphic novel over here and I have the script over here, I’m like “Oh no, I need that piece of voice over from the thing” or “I need…” So I’m about to do another rewrite and we’ll see, but it’s long.

Quint: I wanted to talk a little bit about working with the actors and especially with Jackie, because Rorschach as written, when he puts the mask on they even have a different kind of font… colored voice box… squiggly lines and stuff, so how are you guys going to approach that?

Zack Snyder: I don’t know. I think we’re going to play around a little bit and try to figure out what’s going to be cool. It’s funny because, have you ever seen the documentary THE MINDSCAPE OF ALAN MOORE? It’s a new documentary and in it Alan does a dramatic reading of Rorschach’s voiceover and I was like “gosh, maybe we should use that as sort of the model for tone and stuff like that, because who would know, right?”

Quint: Is it dramatically different when… because in the books…

Zack Snyder: Well, he’s reading it as his VO, so I would imagine that would be his voice…

Quint: But in the book when he has the mask on…

Zack Snyder: You imagine that he’s more...

Quint: Yeah and then when he has it off, it’s like he literally does lose his identity, like he always seems to be talking just as concise, but without the…

Zack Snyder: The rasp or whatever it is…

Quint: Yeah or whatever that squiggly line is.

Zack Snyder: I love that, because they also refer to it in the most obscure way, so you’re not exactly sure. It’ll be fun. I don’t know, we’re going to have to play with and see… but we’re certainly aware of it.

Quint: I’m bugging Warner Brothers… I’d love to see the sets.

Zack Snyder: Oh yeah absolutely, it’s so fun. My office, I’m going to try to shoot a still for my myspace page in my office up there if they’ll let me, because it’s like my whole wall is like owl ship, like hovering over the riots… a huge painting like with all of the fires and people rioting and it’s like all this crazy… I just sit in there and go like “this is insane…” I had my friend, who’s an illustrator, he did a painting for me, because we’re doing a series of paintings… sort of just inspirational things that have nothing to do with the movie, but it’s a shot of the… you know the Enola Gay?

Quint: Yeah.

Zack Snyder: Well, it’s flying away from Hiroshima and you can see the mushroom cloud behind it… it’s a beautiful painting, but instead of “Enola Gay,” it says “The Ms. Jupiter” on it with a shot of Sally, in her Vargas… it’s so cool…

Quint: That’s so awesome.

Zack Snyder: It’s such a geek out…

And that’s it. Not bad for 6 minutes. Got a lot in there. Still early days yet on this one. Hard to tell how it’s going to be, but Snyder has earned some trust and his casting is pretty spot on. I’ve done some awesome intervies in the last 18 hours… but I’m so tired. Will post more tomorrow! -Quint quint@aintitcool.com