Sat, July 24, 2004
Defamer link lag roundup—9:38 AM
Paramount will make a movie out of The Watchmen, which will be awesome. Actually, it will be awesome if done right. As you may recall from my non-review of the book, I found it compelling and elegantly plotted. However, as we've all seen (ahem-Catwoman), great comic characters can be ruined on the big screen. With Aronofsky attached, there's a 50%-60% chance of ruin. Here's hoping this project will switch directors as often as most, and Bryan Singer will be tapped to take over. I hate to go with the obvious choice of "Comic Book Movie Guy," but so far only he has done justice to a comics-based ensemble of characters. Tim Burton and Sam Raimi have done well bringing smaller casts to life in film, but I get the sense that Raimi isn't interested in doing more comics, and I get the sense that nobody really takes Burton seriously any more (here's hoping Willy Wonka can change that!). (Raimi would be great, though; the characters of Watchmen are even more tortured and conflicted than Raimi's Peter Parker.)
Also on tap, Transformers from DreamWorks. Thank God this is going to be live-action. That has to be the single greatest sidestep of a surefire movie-destroying decision in recent memory. An animated – or worse, computer-animated ("from the makers of Shrek!!") version would've been silly and gay. A live-action version has lots of promise. It can still be ruined, mind you, but I'm betting/hoping it won't. The word is that Spielberg is staying involved in this one; maybe they'll give it to Sonnenfeld. As long as they preserve that awesome "transforming" sound effect from the animated TV series they'll be all right. And it'll be fun that all those cool kids with their super-hip Decepticon car window decals will suddenly appear to be shilling for the movie. I always regretted not getting one of those – now, the joke's on them! I still fondly remember the Christmas that Rodimus Prime was the Tickle Me Elmo of that year, and it took a cross-country search to get me one. (Thanks, Aunt Kibbie!)
And, finally, Bright/Kauffman/Crane have made the most regrettable mistake of their short and ignoble careers: they're removing Ashley Scott from Joey. Ashley Scott! She, the best young actress TV has seen since - ever! Well, anyway, I love her.
Bee Boy — Mon, 3/21/05 6:02pm
I happened to notice on kottke.org that Darren Aronofsky was talking about his new project, The Fountain – and it put a little twinkle in my eye, because I thought that might mean my prayer vigil had worked and he'd been pulled off Watchmen.
Sure enough, IMDb says Watchmen is now in the able hands of Bourne Supremacy helmer Paul Greengrass – and what do you know, I was just enjoying X-Men 2 yesterday on DVD, and its scribe David Hayter is listed as the writer on Watchmen, too. With the Kung Fu-licious John Rogers shepherding the Transformers script, things are really starting to look up. 2006 might be almost as good a year for big, fun movies as 2005 seems like it might yet be!