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Watchmen Director on JMS, Bringing Dr. Manhattan/Mars to Life & More

Watchmen director Brandon Vietti discusses J. Michael Straczynski's role in the animated adaptation and bringing Dr. Manhattan/Mars to life.

With the first chapter of Warner Bros. Entertainment's take on DC Comics' Watchmen (based on writer Alan Moore, artist Dave Gibbons, and colorist John Higgins's classic work) now available (and hitting physical media later this month), we're getting a chance to hear from director Brandon Vietti (Young Justice, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Batman: Under the Red Hood) about how the two-part film approached making the comic book series work as an animated adaptation and Dr. Manhattan's (Michael Cerveris) self-imposed exile on Mars.

"There are some events that we had to reshuffle a little bit because it just works better for a movie format. he explains. The original 'Watchmen' story was crafted for twelve individual issues, and the order of events was designed for very specific pacing, for a very specific page count per issue, and that doesn't necessarily translate to great film pacing," Vietti explained. To be able to bring the story to animated life, Vietti looked to someone who is definitely no stranger to the writing game on any number of levels – J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5). "Straczynski obviously has a ton of experience in television and movie writing, and he took the first crack at what would be best to reorder for best pacing in the movie format," he added.

"Recapping Jon's origin story was the biggest artistic challenge and the biggest artistic push for me. I wanted to bring something different. I saw an opportunity to use the animation medium and the filmmaking medium to try to create a sense for the audience of what it is like for Doctor Manhattan to perceive multiple points in time at the same time," Vietti explained, noting how the creative team looked at how animation could offer viewers a better understanding of what Dr. Manhattan was experiencing. "The gift that 'Watchmen' gives us through Alan Moore's writing is that throughout the story, there's a lot of nonlinear storytelling going on, from the opening of the book, where we're cutting back and forth between detectives at a crime scene and then jumping back in time to the crime happening. It sort of sets up a complexity in the storytelling that is very appealing to me."

In the following IGN-exclusive clip, Dan Dreiberg, aka Night Owl (Matthew Rhys), and Laurie Juspeczyk, aka Silk Spectre (Katee Sackhoff), pick the right ally to travel down to burn off a whole lot of pent-up anger and frustration. Meanwhile, a talk show visit takes a disturbing turn when Dr. Manhattan (Michael Cerveris) gets tired of some very accusatory questioning…

The voice cast for "Chapter 1" includes Matthew Rhys (Dan Dreiberg, Nite Owl), Katee Sackhoff (Laurie Juspeczyk, Silk Spectre), Titus Welliver (Rorschach, Walter Kovacs), Troy Baker (Adrian Veidt, Ozymandias), Adrienne Barbeau (Sally Jupiter, Silk Spectre), Corey Burton (Captain Metropolis), Michael Cerveris (Jonathan Osterman, Dr. Manhattan), Jeffrey Combs (Edgar Jacobi, Moloch), John Marshall Jones (Hooded Justice), Yuri Lowenthal (Wally Weaver), Geoff Pierson (Hollis Mason, Nite Owl), Kari Wahlgren (Janey Slater), Rick D. Wasserman (Edward Blake, The Comedian), Grey DeLisle, Kelly Hu, Max Koch, Phil LaMarr, Dwight Schultz, and Jason Spisak.

Produced and directed by Brandon Vietti from an adaptation by J. Michael Straczynski, the animated Watchmen sees Jim Krieg and Cindy Rago producing and Gibbons serving as a consulting producer. Sam Register, Larry Gordon, and Lloyd Levin serve as executive producers.

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