Zack Snyder has been known to faithfully adapt comic books and graphic novels into full-fledged films until the last minute. With some minor changes that essentially change the entire story, Snyder has often found himself on the opposite side of precise adaptations.
Talking about the 2009 film titled Watchmen, Zack Snyder chose to omit a pretty big event from the graphic novel. Stating that there was no need for the Squid Attack, Snyder defended his decision for years before finally admitting that it wouldn’t have been such a bad idea to include the plot after all!
Why Zack Snyder Chose To Replace The Squid Attack!
Zack Snyder faithfully adapted the graphic novel into Watchmen. However, he changed the finale a bit. With Doctor Manhattan as the main villain instead of the Squid Monster, Snyder felt that Dr. Manhattan as the villain would make more sense.
The director defended his decision to omit the Squid Attack for years with different reasons. In a recent interview, the veteran director revealed to Uproxx that he might have considered including the Squid Attack if Watchmen was made today!
“By the way, I love ‘Watchmen.’ I have no regrets. I love that movie 100 percent/ It’s exactly what I wanted. And in some ways, I think there’s a great college class that someone could teach on the difference between Doctor Manhattan and the squid. And why we would have chosen Doctor Manhattan and how thematically that works as it relates to the climax of that book.”
He further continued,
“But I would also say, that based on doing the movie that I just did, ‘Justice League,’ I might consider it. Only because I feel like it would have required a slightly longer movie to do the squid, than say, Doctor Manhattan.”
As the interview further progressed, the veteran director revealed that if they had included the Squid Attack, they would have to remove one of Snyder’s favorite sequences from the film!
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Zack Snyder Had A Runtime Constraint
Back in 2009, the director did not have as much creative freedom over his projects as he does now. With a runtime constraint on the director, Snyder revealed that he could have included the squid Attack but for that, the director would have had to remove one of his favorite sequences.
“It was probably best not to [include the squid] because it would’ve ended up adding another 15 pages to the script. You know, just to kind of make that make sense.”
The sequence that Snyder was talking about was the funeral of the Comedian. Choosing his favorite sequences over the Squid Attack storyline, Snyder released Watchmen which was quite a success! The 2009 film received a rating of 7.6/10 on IMDB and an average of 65% on Rotten Tomatoes. The film is currently available to stream on Max in the U.S.
