Tom Cruise wanted to play Rorschach

Good thing that didn't happen, then it would have been a Tom Cruise movie a la The Mummy. TBC, Tom Cruise makes great Toim Cruise movies, but Watchmen should not have been a TC movie anymore than The Mummy should have.

Phew, Watchmen would have been a total waste of time if Cruise was in it.

Glad we dodged that.

Tom Cruise is a good enough actor that he probably could have done it - people don't give him enough credit for his abilities. But that's assuming that Tom Cruise the Movie Star didn't wind up insisting on rewrites to soften the character or refocus the narrative onto Walter Kovacs.

But, really, Ozymandias would have been a better idea. I would actually be a little excited if Tom Cruise was playing Ozymandias because the casting would kinda add something. It'd be almost like Michael Keaton being Birdman. Tom Cruise playing a now middle-aged golden-boy who has built himself into an institution that might have something a little sinister going on at the centre...