Watchmen director Zack Snyder looked back on the movie at a recent SnyderCon Q&A and reflected on the film’s opening sequence and his approach to it.
While answering general DC questions, the topic of Watchmen and his adaptation came up. Snyder discussed how the graphic novel deconstructed superhero comics and how he wove different pieces of pop culture together in the opening scene to reflect that attitude.
“If you look at the drawings I’ve done of the title sequence of Watchmen, it is a weirdo collage scrapbook of … it’s frames from the graphic novel and pop culture, whether it be Norman Rockwell or the Enola Gay, whatever it is,” Snyder explained. “All this stuff, all the way to Action Comics … because that comic book and that piece of mythology is linked back to … because it deconstructs comic book heroes, it’s self-reflective … it does acknowledge but pretends like it’s not a comic book.
“Just the simple fact that in that world, comics don’t exist, and so pirate comic books are the comic books. Pirate heroes are the superheroes because superheroes are real. So that little game of deconstruction is the game that we then play with every single thing, every level, every idea, every nuance.”
Who was in Zack Snyder’s Watchmen movie?
2009’s Watchmen movie adaptation was directed by Zack Snyder and written by David Hayter and Alex Tse. It stars Malin Åkerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Carla Gugino, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Patrick Wilson.
