Shocker! Moore Takes Name Off "Watchmen" Movie
Angry Ranting Comics Wizard (tm) Alan Moore has, in a shocking move unpredicted by anyone, taken his name off the Watchmen movie. Wizard, the #1 Men's Pop Culture Magazine, which also, FYI, covers comics*, has the scoop: "I spoke to Dave [Gibbons, co-creator of Watchmen] the other day. I got a piece of paper—they must’ve learned something from the “V for Vendetta” debacle. I got a piece of paper a couple of months ago saying, “I, the undersigned, hereby give you permission to take my name off of the film and to send my money to Dave Gibbons.” So I sent that back to them all signed and sealed, which means that now I don’t have to rant and spew about the film. I’m just simply not interested in it. Dave phoned me up, and it’s always nice to talk to Dave, but he understands that I’m not really interested in “Watchmen.” So when he phoned, he asked me if I was interested in being kept up to date on it, and I was saying, “Well, it’s always nice to talk to you, but not really.” I don’t really know much about it. I believe that it’s going ahead. I won’t be watching it, obviously. I can at least remain neutral to it as long as they’re taking my name off of it and not playing these silly, ultimately futile games like they were doing last time, which worked out so well for them. No, I’m keeping well away from all of that."So there you go... You won't see "created by Alan Moore" anywhere on the Watchmen movie. Which begs the question... What WOULD make Alan Moore okay with keeping his name on a movie? I understand that to a certain extent, he's sticking up for the fact that his works are essentially comics based, and semi-untranslatable to the screen. Yet, there has to be some way he'd be proud of a comic book movie, right? Maybe?
You can click over to WizardUniverse for the rest of the interview, which is mostly about the upcoming League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century series coming from Top Shelf.
*I'm in a good mood today. Can you tell?Watchmen, Alan Moore
What if the movie turns out to be soooo good, and it just makes a shitload of money. What then? hahaha
You know he lives on a pile of dragon treasure, right? Because he's the King of the Faeries?
Can you blame the guy for not believing this will work? All of his other works like From Hell, LEG, and V for Vendetta (stylisticly I mean) have all been shit. If he wants to take his name off then good for him if the movie fails. I think its going to be great and Synder has yet to make a terrible film...So at worst this is going to be medicore or good not terrible.
I think its a good move. He probably just wants to keep his name in line with a version of the story that he personally agrees with, that has not been rewritten or redone by a team of writers outside of his own designs. Artist integrity i guess
That's the problem with publisher-owned entities. Nowadays, an original creation like Watchmen or V for Vendetta would probably be a creator-owned work, and the rights and decisions for adaptations and commercialization would be completely up to Moore.
Unfortunately, that was not the case with comics for a long time, as I'm sure everybody who would be reading this knows. So, the two basic ways to deal with a movie being made from your baby is to throw your hat in the ring and get involved, or ignore it and talk trash about the adaptation.
Personally, I think comic adaptations come of better when the creator is involved. Stardust was infinitely better off for the involvement of Gaiman.
Even when Batman was made back in the day, Bob Kane was involved to a degree, and I'm sure the movie is better for it, because Tim Burton doesn't know the first damned thing about comic books. He wouldn't know that the Joker didn't actually have a mustache underneath his makeup if somebody didn't tell him.
So I guess what I'm saying is for all Alan Moore's complaining about the quality of the films based on his work, they would be far better if he would give a little help.
But that's his prerogative, and I'm sure he's terribly busy, what with secretly being the headmaster at Hogwarts and all.
Wait until they adapt Lost Girls...