Terry Gilliam on Zack Snyder's Watchmen: 'It Needed a Kick in the Ass'

I spoke to director Terry Gilliam yesterday, and while our interview will run much closer to the Christmas Day release date of his newest film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, I couldn't help but ask him about Watchmen. Gilliam twice attempted to mount Watchmen for the screen (even going so far as to pitch it as a television miniseries) but could never make it work, so I was curious what he thought of Zack Snyder's theatrical adaptation of the graphic novel, which came out earlier this year.

"I felt a lot of it was so good," Gilliam began. "It got the look of it brilliantly. But it suffered from some of the things I was having problems with when I was trying to write a script. It's too short. It's also too long! It's a very weird thing and they had to make so many compromises and changes. I was always saying it should be a five-part miniseries. I still believe that."

As Gilliam continued, he echoed the prevailing critique of the film: "But he got the look right, and the Rorshach stuff is really, really great. I think I felt if there was any fault, it was almost too respectful of the original." Gilliam laughed. "It needed a kick in the ass, frankly." ♦