CONFIRMED. Gerard Butler does Black Freighter segment in WATCHMEN!
We've speculated about it for at least a year now but finally confirmation has come today on Gerard Butler's involvement in Watchmen. Ironically, it's taken till principal photography has ended before the first guy rumored in the movie has been confirmed to have a part in it. According to the Scottish actor himself when speaking to Empire, Butler will indeed be involved in the Black Freighter segment of the film which is a HUGE part of the graphic novel but has been cut by Warner Bros. for the feature film but is being especially shot for the fans so it can be placed on the extended dvd of the film.
For those that haven't read Alan Moore's awesome graphic novel, The Tales of the Black Freighter is a comic within a comic. It tells the story a castaway pirate who battles mental and physical deterioration to get home to warn his family about an impending attack from a mysterious ghost Black Freighter ship.Im going to do the voice of the captain, said Butler. Theyre going to do it in the style of a Japanese anime and Im totally stoked. I actually read the script before reading the comic book and I thought it was awesome, continued the 38 year-old. Then I read the comic book and its great. The little bits that have been added define it so much more. Its very dark and theres just something so descriptive and scary. Its this descent into madness but explained in such a sane way that you totally feel it yourself. By the end, my heart was pumping!So the part is going to be animated, kinda Kill Bill style where the rest of the movie is live action apart from that section. I can dig that. I would rather have it live-action ala the movie Castaway but if this is the only way to get the sub-plot into the movie then that's fine with me. It's such a big part of the message and tone of Alan Moore's original writings that it absolutely had to be part of the film. Staying with Watchmen, in late casting news actor Niall Matter will appear as Mothman in the film, which we believe has now officially finished shooting. Matter is a 28 year old Canadian born actor who worked on an oil rig for eight years before becoming an actor and winning himself small roles in Eureka and Stargate: Atlantis. Mothman is a member of the original "Minutemen" group of masked heroes who fought crime in the 30's and 40's. He was partner to the characters that Carla Gugino and Stephen McHattie's play in the movie before he suffered mental health problems and he turned to the drink which caused him to be committed to a sanitarium in Maine. He is not expected to have a big part in the film as he's barely in the original graphic novel. source - empire, watchmen movie blog