Matthew Goode: “‘Watchmen’ will be a showstopper”
Billy Crudup as Dr. Manhattan in this production still from “Watchmen,” courtesy the Associated Press.
English actor Matthew Goode readily admits he wasn’t familiar with Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ watershed graphic novel when director Zack Snyder asked him to audition for the part of Ozymandias/Adrian Veidt in the film version of “Watchmen.”
But he counts himself among the graphic novel’s avid fans now.
“Once I read it and sort of then started investigating after I got the part, I was like I can’t believe (it), because it is regarded as the ‘Citizen Kane’ of the graphic novel world. And obviously all the other actors, like Jackie Earle Haley and Billy Crudup and Patrick Wilson, I was like ‘Oh, my God, they’ve got a fantastic bunch of people together as well.’
“And Zack is such a formidable, likeable, intelligent guy, that when we first started talking about it, I was like I think this can be quite special,” he said in a phone interview last week, just hours before he flew to his first Comic-Con International in San Diego, Calif.
He joined the Snyder, the rest of the cast and Gibbons on the “Watchmen” panel, which our own Matt Price of Nerdage calls “one of the toughest-to-get-in panels of the entire convention.”
According to Matt and other news reports, reaction to the footage was mostly positive. For Goode, it would be his first time to see any snippets of the movie outside the first trailer, which he described as “f—ing hello. It was amazing.”
He has yet to see the whole film, and he is aware that ”Watchmen” creator Moore has publicly detached himself for the project. But he still has confidence the movie, which is set to open March 6, 2009, will be true to the source material.
“I know how much Zack upheld the integrity of the novel. So, they’re a lot of people out there who are … gunning for it to fail, a lot of Alan Moore fans, which I can respect that and totally understand it,” he said.
“But I think as I say it should be a real showstopper.”
Click here to read Matt’s roundup of Comic-Con, including word on “Watchmen.”
You can also click here to read an Associated Press story about plans for two video games related to the movie.
-BAM
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[...] also plied him for information about the upcoming “Watchmen.” Get the rundown on her blog. And, see the rest of the promo posters after the [...]