https://www.indiewire.com/2021/01/paul-greengrass-compares-unmade-watchmen-movie-joker-1234607482/
shareI think he was also approached to direct an early version of Marvel's Civil War arc but with Fox characters like the XMen, Fantastic Four, and Daredevil.
shareMy view was, I didn’t want to do a faithful adaptation
To make an interesting film? Joker and Nolan's Batman are surely not the work of purists, but they succeeded with audiences, b/c most who buy tix are not purists, but more likely oblivious to the details of the source material. What I don't get is the mindset that thinks faithful adaptations work best for a compelling 2-hour movie. And let's face it, you wind up drawing the purists to the theater as well, if only out of curiosity, so it's at least partially pre-sold.
shareIt depends on the material. I think one of the reasons Batman works across different adaptations is because the comic book is very, very open-ended. There are so many different interpretations of Batman from Kane and Finger's first works through the various ages of comics that any interpretation kinda works. And if you're just doing "Batman" you can write a new story.
But with Watchmen, you're taking a very specific, contained narrative and putting it onto the screen. If you're deviating too far from it, then yeah, what is the point? I am fine with things changing - cuts are made, aesthetics shift a bit - to hop from one artistic medium to another, but if you don't really want to do what the source material does, why do it at all?
At the very least, rename it or something to make it clear what you're doing. Treasure Planet, for instance, refits Robert Louis Stevenson's adventure story into outer space, but they're basically telling us that they're taking liberties. Framing is important. Don't tell Watchmen fans that you're doing Watchmen and then say, "Yoink! We changed everything!"