Let me just strap on my neckbeard, here...
Ah. There we go. Now, then.
Given the caliber of the people involved in the forthcoming 'Watchmen' movie, I don't see any nuanced, articulate meta-commentary of the superhero genre being part of it. It'll probably be that 'okay action-mystery-sci-fi' movie that eventually makes it's production costs back from DVD sales/rentals. (kinda like 'V for Vendetta')
What itches my neckbeard in this case, however, is that the original creator Alan Moore is stuck in a lose/lose proposition. His (and artist Dave Gibbons') original deal with DC/Warner stipulated that all rights to Watchmen reverted to them once it had gone out of print for a time. (In which case, as Mr. Moore had pointed out, he and Mr. Gibbons were free to make all the money they could from the slurpee-cup licensing.) Well, twenty-some odd years later, with the Watchmen graphic novel still in print, we can all see how well that deal turned out for them...
And let's face it, the reviews are going to nail him to the wall if it tanks ('Alan Moore's seminal 'Watchman' graphic novel flops on the big screen...') and in the unlikely event it's a success, ('Zack Snyder's take on DC/Warner's 'Watchmen' is boffo at the box office!'), he's not going to benefit in any practical way. Any money coming from DC/Warner on this is going entirely to Dave Gibbons, since Moore's previous comic-to-movie adaptations were such disasters, Moore wanted to disavow himself from them. (He eschewed any compensation from the studios after the train wreck that was League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.)
Well, you may ask, you little rascal, you: "So why doesn't Alan Moore either A) demand more hands-on involvement like Frank Miller with Sin City or B) shut up and just take the Hollywood money like Dashell Hammett did? (As Hammett pointed out when asked if he was concerned that the studios would ruin his work, "Look, my books are still there on the bookshelf, they're fine.")
In regards to A),Watchmen isn't Moore and Gibbons' property like Sin City is Miller's, it's DC/Warner's. And Warner's is more likely to treat Moore like Disney treated Dave Stevens on the set of 'The Rocketeer'. That is, throw him off the set and dangle lawsuits over him to shut him up. And in the case of B), Moore has this pesky vestigial quirk perhaps unfamiliar to movie executives called a set of principles. These principles were what made him not do any more work for DC after he felt that he and many other talents were treated by the company as hired hands in a field. If he took any money from them after the fact, he'd look like a hypocrite. (Then, when DC bought out Wildstorm from under Jim Lee, Moore was still accused of being a sellout, since he was still doing work for Wildstorm.)
The point of all this nerdy indignation, I suppose, is that comics are not a stepping-stone to the wealth, glamour, and big titties that is Hollywood as some people might suppose. And secondly, work like 'Watchmen' doesn't lend itself easily to other mediums. It was specifically designed to work as a comic, and ideally, a comic it should remain. Put it this way: Could any of cartoonist Chris Ware's work be 'adapted' for film or T.V.? Nope. All the movie of 'Watchmen' is going to be is another trip to the money well by DC/Warner while Alan Moore, who raised up the medium more than a few notches in quality, and practically built the ground floor for DC's Vertigo line of 'mature comics', (Remember all those 'Bang! Pow! Zoom! Comics aren't for kids these days!' articles in mainstream magazines in the 90's?) gets roughly the same deal the 'Superman' creators got.
The other message to take away from this, is that if one wants to work in a medium where one wants to do thoughtful, more meaningful work, the comic book field is not the way to go. Let's face it, there's been quite a resurgence in good television in the past few years. The Wire, Deadwood, The Sopranos, Mad Men (off the top of my head) are all examples of this. Hell, even a lot of what you'd consider more mainstream T.V. fare is looking pretty good. (like 'House, M.D', 'Heroes' and 'Battlestar Galactica', to name a few. I imagine you'd still have to endure the same level of petty bureaucracies and corporate bullshit working in television that one does in a comic-book publishing house, but at least you'd be paid well enough to put up with it.
And hey, there'd be not a neckbeard in sight...
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