Watchmen Chapter 1 Animated Movie Trailer Now Released

The iconic comic “Watchmen” is getting an animated adaptation, and its first trailer has been released online. Fans have enjoyed “Watchmen” on the comics page as well as the big and small screens, with Warner Bros. Pictures releasing a “Watchmen” live-action film in 2009 and a live-action TV series on HBO in 2019. Warner Bros. and DC continue to revisit this seminal story, and their latest endeavor is “Watchmen Chapter 1,” the first in a planned series of animated movies. With almost a month until the digital release date, the animated “Watchmen” offers audiences a new look.

A red band trailer for “Watchmen Chapter 1” has received an R-rating for “violent content and some graphic nudity,” which matches the overall tone of the graphic novel it’s based on. The trailer includes flashes of brief nudity and violence. Rorschach greets viewers as he narrates an entry in his journal, detailing The Comedian’s death he’s investigating. “Somebody knows why,” Rorschach says. “These days, nobody’s safe.” The rest of the trailer closely follows the source material from Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ “Watchmen,” which features a group of retired superheroes in an alternate 1985 America who reunite after one of their own is murdered.

In an alternate world history shaped by superheroes, once-celebrated “costumed adventurers” have been banned by a society disenchanted with vigilantism. Now, in 1985, the murder of The Comedian, a hero-turned-government operative, draws the attention of Rorschach, the last of the outlawed vigilantes. Rorschach’s investigation embroils his retired colleagues, Nite Owl, Silk Spectre, Dr. Manhattan, and Ozymandias, in conflict with their pasts, with each other, and in a mystery that threatens their lives and a world on the brink of war.

The “Watchmen” movie marks the latest attempt to adapt the events of the maxiseries, following Zack Snyder’s 2009 movie, and later HBO’s award-winning television series in 2019. According to previous comments from HBO executive Casey Bloys, there are no current plans to continue the “Watchmen” series in any way, and it would ultimately be up to series creator Damon Lindelof to return to the project.

“Watchmen was so much his creation,” Bloys previously told Variety. “If he doesn’t think there’s a story that he wants to put his heart and soul into, it’s hard for me to think that it would be worth doing. It was a very special limited series for us. I would put it in the pantheon of HBO greats. If Damon ever wants to revisit it, he knows that it’s an open door. But it is hard for me to imagine doing one without him.”

“Watchmen Chapter 1” is available on Digital August 13th.

Source: Variety