Watchmen Movie

A few months ago, in the vast reaches of the Internet, someone began spreading the rumor that Warner Bros. was considering a WATCHMEN sequel and/or prequel.

For longtime fans of the graphic novel, this is as close to heresy as you can get. Comic book legend Alan Moore only penned 12 issues of WATCHMEN, and they’re all being covered in the upcoming movie. Any further WATCHMEN films would have to rely on content not created by the man himself. This would be akin to a Star Wars film not written by George Lucas (and go ahead, make whatever Phantom Menace jokes you want, but you know what I mean).

Now, I’m not thrilled by the prospect of a sequel, but allow me to play devil’s advocate for a minute.

Is it possible, in any way, shape or form, for a WATCHMEN sequel to be successful?

Maybe…

First let’s look at the idea of a prequel. WATCHMEN takes place in 1985, but frequently references events spanning from 1939 to 1977. There is a massive back-story that’s only seen in glimpses throughout the graphic novel, and people have been toying with taking that back-story and expanding it into a film of its own.

While this does seem like a tempting idea, I’m not sure it would work. Sure, a prequel would be based heavily on Moore’s original writings and would run less risk of trampling on anything in WATCHMEN, but I think ultimately it would be a little boring. Part of the fun of WATCHMEN is the mystery about these characters’ pasts and how that mystery slowly unravels as you get closer to the end. If you really take your time with the graphic novel, you’ll find that everything you wanted to know about the back-story is already hidden in clever ways. Why ruin the hunt? To me a prequel seems like one big answer key to a Where’s Waldo book.

A sequel, on the other hand, while far more likely to upset fans, has more potential for me. Without spoiling too much, WATCHMEN closes with the characters coming to an understanding that nothing ever ends - the world keeps spinning and things keep changing. As a result, the events of WATCHMEN are left wide open. There are a million different stories that could be told in the wake of this film, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious about the possibilities.

Now, would I want to see such a film if it wasn’t written by Alan Moore? Probably not. I’m just saying, I think there is a worthy successor to WATCHMEN out there… somewhere…

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 26th, 2009 at 12:10 PM and is filed under The Future, World of WATCHMEN. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.