Watchmen (2009)

Watchmen is a 2009 American superhero film based on the comic book series by Dave Gibbons, and published by DC Comics. Directed by Zack Snyder, and written by David Hayter and Alex Tse, the film stars Malin Åkerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Carla Gugino, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Patrick Wilson. A dark and dystopian deconstruction of the superhero genre, the film is set in an alternate history in the year 1985 at the height of the Cold War, as a group of mostly retired American superheroes investigate the murder of one of their own before uncovering an elaborate and deadly conspiracy with which they are all connected.

For nearly two decades from October 1987 until October 2005, a live-action film adaptation of the Watchmen series became stranded in development hell. Producers Lawrence Gordon and Joel Silver began developing the project at 20th Century Fox, later moving it to Warner Bros. Pictures, the sister company of Watchmen publisher DC Comics, and hiring director Terry Gilliam, who eventually left the production and deemed the complex comic "unfilmable". During the 2000s, Gordon and Lloyd Levin collaborated with Universal Pictures, Revolution Studios and Paramount Pictures to produce the film. Directors David Hayter, Darren Aronofsky, and Paul Greengrass were attached to the project before it was canceled over budget disputes. In October 2005, the project returned to Warner Bros., where Snyder was hired to direct. Paramount remained as its international distributor, whereas Warner Bros. would distribute the film in the United States. However, Fox sued Warner Bros. for copyright violation arising from Gordon's failure to pay a buy-out in 1991, which enabled him to develop the film at the other studios. Fox and Warner Bros. settled this before the film's release, with Fox receiving a portion of the gross. Principal photography began in Vancouver, in September 2007. As with his previous film 300 (2006), Snyder closely modeled his storyboards on the comic but chose not to shoot all of Watchmen using green screens and opted for real sets instead.

Following its world premiere at the Odeon Leicester Square in London on February 23, 2009, the film was released in the United States on March 6, by Warner Bros. Pictures. The film underperformed at the box office, grossing $187 million against a production budget of $130–138 million. Greg Silverman (former Warner Bros. executive) said that the film did later become profitable through streaming and home video sales.

The film received mixed reviews from critics, who praised the striking visuals and the faithfulness to the source material, but criticized the complexity of the plot. A DVD based on elements of the Watchmen universe was released, including an animated adaptation of the Tales of the Black Freighter comic within the story voiced by Gerard Butler and a fictional documentary titled Under the Hood detailing the older generation of superheroes from the film's backstory. A director's cut with 24 minutes of additional footage was released in July 2009. The "Ultimate Cut" edition incorporated the animated comic Tales of the Black Freighter into the narrative as it was in the original graphic novel, lengthening the runtime to 3 hours and 35 minutes, and was released on November 10, 2009. The director's cut is generally viewed as an improvement over the theatrical release.