Ahead of its release next month, Warner Bros give us a first proper look at its ‘faithful’ take on Watchmen: Chapter 1. Here’s a full red band trailer.
There’s yet another adaptation of Watchmen on the way – a CG animated movie that is said to be more faithful than earlier takes on the graphic novel. Called Watchmen: Chapter 1, it’s targeting an 13th August 2024 release on disc with the second part coming in 2025. Warner Bros has now released the full red band trailer to promote the upcoming release, which you can catch below.
The voice cast for the films includes Matthew Rhys as Nite Owl, Katee Sackhoff as Silk Spectre, Titus Welliver as Rorschach, Troy Baker as Ozymandias, Corey Burton as Captain Metropolis and Michael Cerveris as Dr Manhattan.
The tale regards a group of retired superheroes in alternate 1980s timeline who for better or worse, changed the world. The story finds them having to reckon with those changes when somebody begins killing them off, one by one.
Here’s a full synopsis too.
“Danger is on the horizon.” In an alternate 1985 America, costumed superheroes are part of everyday life. When one of his former comrades is murdered in his own apartment, the masked vigilante known as Rorschach uncovers a plot to kill and discredit all past and present superheroes. As he reconnects with his retired associates, only one of which has true powers (Dr. Manhattan), Rorschach glimpses a far-reaching conspiracy involving their shared past and catastrophic consequences for the world’s future.
Watchmen has long been considered – not least by its own author, Alan Moore – to be an ‘unfilmable’ book. That hasn’t stopped plenty of filmmakers from adapting the graphic novel over the years, however, and the results have been mixed. Damon Lindelof’s recent miniseries was the most successful, partly because it veered far away from Moore’s original story.
Zack Snyder’s 2009 film adaptation was slavishly faithful up to a point, but simply following the pages of the source material didn’t recapture the magic of the original story, even if the film’s incredible opening title sequence could be seen as Zack Snyder’s greatest work.
All of which brings us back to Watchmen: Chapter 1. The film was first revealed all the way back in 2017, then went quiet for a few years before resurfacing again at San Diego Comic Con last year.
Here’s that trailer:
