12 Supposedly Unfilmable Films That Actually Got Made

7. Watchmen (2009)

Why It Was 'Unfilmable': The very thing that made Watchmen unique and highly-praised as a comic book - how it takes the superhero genre and subverts it with a much grittier interpretation of a world populated by caped crusaders - was also the very thing that made it so problematic as a film adaptation. Or at least that was part of it; there aren't many studios out there willing to put up millions for a superhero movie full of political cynicism and unsparing ultra-violence. There was also the matter of condensing all the material in Alan Moore's Watchmen graphic novel into a single, satisfying film. Terry Gilliam gave it a go, to no avail, as did Darren Aronofsky and Paul Greengrass. Greengrass got close - concept art was drawn up, casting began and a promotional teaser website was even set up. But Paramount, despite spending $7 million on pre-production already, put the project in turnaround. How It Got Made: Sound stages and green screen, a speciality of eventual Watchmen director Zack Snyder, helped reduce costs on the dark superhero epic as well as make its epic leanings easier to handle. Snyder's 2009 Watchmen film was to be perhaps as condensed a version of Moore's graphic novel as could possibly be - 12 volumes packed into 162 minutes. Though with that unrelenting darkness and bloody violence intact, it remains ultimately uncertain how Snyder secured himself the $120 million budget for Watchmen. A thank you for what he achieved on 300, perhaps?