We're watching The Watchmen

The first solid details are starting to emerge about what, for me at least, is the most exciting movie prospect of 2009. Watchmen, an adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' hugely influential comic book series, was first promised as a Terry Gilliam epic back in the mid-1990s. The melding of Moore's dytopian parallel history and the dreamy alternate world of Gilliam's 'Brazil' looked to be a winner but budgetary constraints consigned the project to development hell. In Gilliam's words, 'I recognised that I was about the only person who could do it well, but then I didn't get the money. So I was 'saved' from that one"

Now helmed by Zack Snyder, who demonstrated his facility with bringing comic book fantasies to life in '300', the movie finally looks to be edging towards completion. Carla Gugino, who plays the original Silk Spectre in Snyder's production, spoke to MTV's movie blog:

“It incorporates real history and the fictitious world of Watchmen, and so it’s very cool,we meet Nixon and all sorts of people.”

Sin City actress Gugino's character ages from her early twenties to her mid-late sixties in the story, which follows the exploits of a superhero team from the 1930s to an apocalyptic Cold War scenario some time in the eighties. It remains to be seen how the effects team will handle radioactive demigod Dr.Manhattan on screen, and diehard fans who have been waiting twenty years for the film version will be desperate to see how the interstitial chapters of Hollis Mason's autobiography and The Black Freighter will fit in.

We'll no doubt find out more over the next twelve long months as we wait for the film that stands a fair chance of being the Best Superhero Movie Ever.

Michael Moran