Rare Test Footage Surfaces From Un-Made Watchmen Movie From 2003
A Game of Thrones favourite as Rorschach? The Punisher as Night Owl?
HBO’s Watchmen series may currently be winning all kinds of acclaim from critics and fans alike, and Zack Snyder’s 2009 Watchmen movie is a major favourite of many, yet all could have been oh so different for the live-action incarnation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ iconic 1986 comic book tale.
Back before Snyder was even close to signing on to direct that aforementioned movie, David Hayter was just one of several people to be given the task of adapting Moore and Gibbons’ legendary work.
After Sam Hamm and Terry Gilliam had failed to bring the property to live-action life not long after the Watchmen graphic novel was first released, 2003 saw actor-turned-filmmaker David Hayter tasked with writing and directing a movie version of Watchmen.
At the time, the notoriously grouchy Alan Moore himself proclaimed Hayter’s Watchmen vision as “as close as I could imagine getting to” a film incarnation of the source material. Hayter’s movie would ultimately never come to be due to the ever familiar “creative differences” – although he did get a writing credit on Snyder’s 2009 effort – but now some test footage has surfaced from the Watchmen movie David Hayter had in mind.
Shot during pre-production, here we find Game of Thrones’ Iain Glen as Night Owl and Punisher: War Zone’s Ray Stevenson as Rorschach.
After Hayter departed Watchmen, Darren Aronofsky was at one point mooted for the director’s chair before Zack Snyder eventually (finally!) got the film made.