Summary
- DC announces two new movies for 2024, including an animated remake of Watchmen and an adaptation of Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths.
- The decision to remake Watchmen is interesting, given the recent live-action version and HBO series. It will be a stand-alone animated movie.
- The animated remake has the potential to deliver a purer adaptation than Zack Snyder's version, including the missing scenes and replicating the art style of Dave Gibbons.
A new Watchmen movie is coming in 2024. While DC and Warner Bros have sat out Comic Con 2023, they've still announced 2 new DC movies for 2024, including an animated remake of Watchmen and a long-awaited adaptation of Justice League: Crisis On Infinite Earths. Alan Moore's seminal Watchmen exploded into existence in 1986, provocatively challenging comic book staples like black and white morality and offered grotesque dark mirrors of established superheroes like Nick Fury, Captain Atom and Blue Beetle. A roaring success, it was long considered unadaptable, but 2024 will see a third such achievement.
DC's official Twitter quietly announced the movies with a simple "why isn't it 2024 yet?!?" before revealing the title cards. Watchmen's announcement prompted a mix of excitement and confusion, given the huge potential to adapt Geoff Johns' Doomsday Clock sequel, or a prequel adapting the eight existing Before Watchmen mini-series.
The decision to remake Watchmen, just 14 years after the live-action version helmed by Zack Snyder and with HBO's excellent live-action Watchmen series still fresh in the memory is a particularly interesting move. The movie will be released under the DC Animated Movie label, which seems to be interchangeable with the other established DC Universe Animated Original Movies, which have different threads of continuity. It's likely Watchmen, which was originally announced as far back as 2017, will be a stand-alone like Moore's original.
DC's Watchmen Remake Can Add Snyder's Missing Scenes
The most exciting possibility raised by DC's decision to make a new adaptation of Watchmen - and to use the animated medium - is the potential to make a purer adaptation than Zack Snyder's live-action version from 2009. Snyder's vision for Watchmen was great, and remains one of his most impressive movies to date, but it made signficant changes to Moore's original. Some cuts were made length, as characters and smaller subplots were excised or swallowed into other characters, and some for scale; the giant alien squid that forms the center-piece of Moore's orignal ending was replaced by a plot implicating Dr Manhattan as the villain. That decision helped kick off a slew of superhero projects invested in the idea of weaponized superheroes gone wrong.
The new Watchmen can truly deliver on Alan Moore's scale and imagination, bringing back the missing elements of Snyder's without replacing it, and hopefully bringing some of the art style of Dave Gibbons into the animation. While some early reactions have, naturally, taken umbrage at the idea of Snyder's movie being redone, an animated project that sticks closer to the original can co-exist without anyone losing any sleep.
