We’ve made no secret about our skepticism over the running time for “Watchmen.” Director Zack Snyder wants it to be three hours long (he’s been duking it out with the studio already), the fan boys keep insisting he’ll get his way, but again, we’re not convinced in the slightest that an untested franchise like this will get a three-hour cut its first time out of the gate. Sure, maybe had they broken up “Watchmen” into two parts and the first half had earned mega-bucks, then it could be feasible. But as it stands now we’d bet money against it. There’s multiple reasons why it probably won’t be three hours long, which we’ve carefully underlined here, but paramount right now is the fact that Warner Bros. is probably going to have to pay 20th Century Fox out the ass because of that recent ‘Who Owns The Watchmen’? rights lawsuit.
So is Snyder being forced to cut down “Watchmen” to an two hour and 25 minute cut? It sure sounds that way according to an article in Entertainment Weekly. It’s about Kevin Smith’s gushing reaction to the film (which we already said kind of means jackshit), but buried at the bottom is this nugget suggesting trims at the behest of WB.
“Snyder is currently endeavoring to trim a nearly three-hour version of Watchmen (which is believed to be the iteration Smith saw) down to two hours and 25 minutes, the studio’s desired running time, even though Snyder’s preference is that the movie be released as long as possible.”
Look, we think Snyder seems like a nice enough guy and “300” was fun popcorn, albeit maybe more homoerotic than the filmmaker realized, we’re just saying it’s not looking good for that cut. Wait for the DVD.