Alan Moore Refuses Rights to Watchmen

[More Fun To Compute]

Really, I've just lost all respect for this man hobo wannabe. He's unpleasable and hates his fans. He's pathetic and deserves no respect.

What have you done to earn his respect? Not much.

What has he done to earn our respect? Quite a lot.

 

[Nautical Honors Society]

Alan Moore is my favorite comic book creator, but he really needs to get over himself. I mean seriously? What is not having a copy of his own comic book going to prove? That he is cool? I thought he was beyond that. But hey, he is still the best.

 

[LightspeedJack]

double post, forum screwed up.

 

[LightspeedJack]

Why have I got some horrid vision of a watchmen babies thing.

You mean this:

Yeah I agree with Alan, leave Watchmen as it is, if The Dark Knight Strikes Again has taught us anything it's that we shouldn't revisit the old classics. Moore's quote on comic books bad connections have me a little puzzled though.

 

[Terrorist_school_drop-out]

Hey, he's kinda like Rorshach.


"Never compromise!"

Complete with the insanity!

Listen DC, Warnerbros., Alan Moore does not want to turn a beloved franchise into a cash cow and neither do the fans of the comic/movie so just leave it be and concentrate on something else.

So, all franchises are cash cows? Even Half-Life? Portal? Left 4 Dead? Saints Row? That's insanity.

Alan Moore is definitely one to put his principles over everything else. I wouldn't want those rights back either if the company were demanding I force myself to make more material just because people are all misty-eyed over the so-so movie adaptation.

I'm really trying to not flame you for calling it so-so.

"The comics world has lots of unpleasant connections, when I think back over it, many of them to do with Watchmen," he said.

I don't quite understand what he means here.

Anyone care to elaborate?

It's the ravings of someone who's far from the sharpest knife in the drawer.

It's a cash cow when there is no need for sequels or any expanding of the original property especially when the original creator of said property wants nothing to do with it, for a matter of fact I belive even Zack Snyder the director of the movie said something about not wanting to make a sequel unless Alan Moore writes a new story. Valve for example has treated it's prepertys well up till' now allways taking their time and expanding on thier original concepts. But on the other hand the Terminator franchise for example should have ended after the second one with T3 and T4 being made to capitalize on the brand and that is a cash cow.

 

[Turing]

Is this really news? I mean, Alan Moore hates everything connected to his comics in any way. As far as I understand he's refused any and all association with the movie adaptions of From Hell, V For Vendetta and Watchmen, including royalties, even though they're all quite passable movies that stay surprisingly true to the original source material.
I suspect the man is certifiably insane, apparently he's into some sort of Aleister Crowley type magic society shit IE worshipping New Satan and does crazy cult stuff and makes pornographic comics now, or somesuch.

All that being said, I love the guy.

"Never compromise, not even in the face of Armageddon"

 

[Flight]

While I can respect a man with integrity, Alan Moore is an ass. If I understand correctly, Mr. Moore was so adamant that the Watchman shouldn't be made into a movie that he essentially wrote the bizarre ending the comic book had to make it impossible to adapt into a movie. Although I certainly agree that some things shouldn't be taken out of their original medium, his approach to this is so fucking over-dramatic and to betray the story over a minor thing like that is just ridiculous.
This whole "I don't want anything to do with comics" comes off sounding like a whiny child to me. A true storyteller would be more concerned with what's important to the story rather than what people do with it afterward. Hollywood being the factory of broken dreams that it is, you can't dissuade them from doing stupid things and it's rather pointless to try.

I agree with most of this. While I think that some things can be taken out of their original medium (and I heard that the film, which I personally have no interest in seeing, was excellent), he sounds more like a whiny brat than anything else. On some level, I can understand it, but on another, it just sounds like he's stamping his feet and going to sulk in a corner.

 

[Deacon Cole]

There's a reason The Dark Knight is popular,...

I know. Heath Ledger died.

Batman's as crazy as the rest of them, he saw his parents get gunned down in front of his eyes and the city he lives in is plagued with senseless death. He has no reason to be anything but more serious than a heart attack.

I find that hilarious.

 

[Escapefromwhatever]

While I can respect a man with integrity, Alan Moore is an ass. If I understand correctly, Mr. Moore was so adamant that the Watchman shouldn't be made into a movie that he essentially wrote the bizarre ending the comic book had to make it impossible to adapt into a movie. Although I certainly agree that some things shouldn't be taken out of their original medium, his approach to this is so fucking over-dramatic and to betray the story over a minor thing like that is just ridiculous.
This whole "I don't want anything to do with comics" comes off sounding like a whiny child to me. A true storyteller would be more concerned with what's important to the story rather than what people do with it afterward. Hollywood being the factory of broken dreams that it is, you can't dissuade them from doing stupid things and it's rather pointless to try.

Gugugugu...fah? So you are trying to state that Alan Moore ended his creative vision the way he did just because he didn't want it to be filmed. You do realize that he wrote Watchmen long before the superhero movie was big and never expected it to be as huge a hit as it was, right? Also, the ending to the comic is alluded to and foreshadowed so many times, I can't conceive of it not being in the original plans for the the plot. Alan Moore does tend to be abrasive in person, yes, but don't think that you know what his motives were for creating Watchmen the way he did. In the words of Darth Vader, "You assume too much."

 

[Blueruler182]

I think Alan Moore just became my most respected man in the entertainment business. I mean, they're going to make a shitty Watchmen sequel with a different creative team, but at least he's kept his pride.

What about Seinfeld? He was offered about 5 million dollars per episode if he had continued his series, but he said that the series was done.

Yeah, but I doubt Seinfeld is strapped for cash at this point. Then again, for all I know, Alan Moore might be the richest man on Earth.

 

[Xanthious]

DC needs to let Watchmen be. There is absolutely no need for any kind of sequel or prequel. The Watchmen is an all encompassing story with zero loose ends or questions that need to be looked into further. The Watchmen "brand" (if you could call it that) is one of the most respected in the comic industry and any new stories with those characters would only serve to cheapen it.

That being said, I do feel as though the Watchmen deserved to be turned into a movie or live action series. Furthermore, while I feel that the current movie is as good as you will get in movie format, it seems to me that an HBO mini series like Game of Thrones is being turned into would of been so much better suited to telling the Watchmen story. With a mini series you could of told the entire story where as the movie, while covering all the main points, did leave certain parts out.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

at one point Terry Gilliam was attached to a Watchmen movie, but he declared it unfilmable (which I don't blame him for) and said it MIGHT have worked better as a mini-series. Even then, Tales of the Black Freighter and the supplementary text materials in the series would not work well in film.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

I have to admit though, while Alan can say some funny things, he's a bit of a dick.

 

[Boba Frag]

You know... initially I thought this was yet another example of Moore exercising his Grumpiest Man in The Universe title... but if DC wanted him to agree to prequels and sequels, which Moore has made clear he wants nothing to do with, then I say good for him.

He's right not to trust DiDio. He's possibly the worst thing to happen to DC in a long time.
I really, really don't like what he's allowed Grant "All I do is Meta-fiction" Morrison to do to Batman, and I can only weep at Jim Lee's continued (in my view misguided) involvement with the other two.

Jim Lee's art makes me want to weep because of the clarity and style, and while I realise it's reliant on an inker and colourist, it's Jim's vision.

I digress...

I think Moore is right to stick to his guns, but at the same time, he's a temperamental artist who I think was wounded by how he was treated by the Business side of things all those years ago.
Shame, really. I'm sure he feels very strongly about it.
Moore isn't your typical writer- he's also got a highly developed sense of integrity and about his work.

I'd rant further on DiDio, but it's late

In fairness to Moore- he hates soulless, unbridled capitalism and encroaching government influence (of any government) but it seem to me that he was a naive, wide eyed young writer who saw something he loved, thoughtful story telling, and saw it devoured by corruption.

 

[Dectilon]

I really didn't care for the movie. A lot of the dialog is awkward and doesn't really work outside of comics. There were some great scenes, but as a whole I didn't think it worked. For instance, the presentation of Ozymandias as a through-and-through villain from square one.

Alan Moore is a crazy anarchistic Crowley-admirer, but he's also highly intelligent and not afraid to say what he thinks (probably why interviews with him are very wordy, yet interesting to read). From previous dealings with him they should've known he'd refuse

 

[mechanixis]

It's interesting to see all these posts siding with Alan Moore saying that 'dark and gritty comics are bad and stupid!', when Watchmen is probably the darkest and grittiest comic ever written, and also one of the best. A comic's quality isn't dependent on that single factor.

At least think about it a little before you go waving that sneering derision around.

Alan Moore's integrity is admirable, but I think it's born of stark raving madness just as much as it might be from strength of principle.