In an interview with Variety's Danny Graydon during Warner Bros.'s first possession of feature film rights for Watchmen, the comic book's writer Alan Moore adamantly opposed a film adaptation of his comic book, arguing, "You get people saying, 'Oh, yes, Watchmen is very cinematic,' when actually it's not. It's almost the exact opposite of cinematic." Moore said that Terry Gilliam, preparing to direct Watchmen for Warner Bros. at the time, had asked Moore how the writer would film it. Moore told Graydon about his response, "I had to tell him that, frankly, I didn't think it was filmable. I didn't design it to show off the similarities between cinema and comics, which are there, but in my opinion are fairly unremarkable. It was designed to show off the things that comics could do that cinema and literature couldn't."[22]

Moore also told Entertainment Weekly in December 2001, "With a comic, you can take as much time as you want in absorbing that background detail, noticing little things that we might have planted there. You can also flip back a few pages relatively easily to see where a certain image connects with a line of dialogue from a few pages ago. But in a film, by the nature of the medium, you're being dragged through it at 24 frames per second."[67] Moore had opposed the adaptation of Watchmen from the beginning, intending to give any resulting film royalties to Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons.[24] According to Moore, David Hayter's script "was as close as [he] could imagine anyone getting to Watchmen." However, Moore added, "I shan't be going to see it. My book is a comic book. Not a movie, not a novel. A comic book. It's been made in a certain way, and designed to be read a certain way: in an armchair, nice and cozy next to a fire, with a steaming cup of coffee."[24]

In an early interview with Entertainment Weekly's Ken Tucker, Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons said that he thought the time had passed to make a Watchmen movie. At the time, Darren Aronofsky was expressing interest in directing the film under Paramount Pictures. Nevertheless, Gibbons said, "It was most likely to happen when Batman was a big success, but then that window was lost." Gibbons also told Neon, "In a way, I'm glad because it wouldn't have been up to the book."[22]

how was it awesome, exactly?  it was the epitome of a one trick action movie that substituted a lifeless visual style for any real substance.  so was it awesome because WHOAAA that guy totally just sliced that dude's head off, or was it awesome because of the total lack of characterization or development?  or maybe because of the mediocre plot and overblown, melodramatic dialogue?  it was just some trite, one-dimensional action movie that ripped off greek mythology with a photoshop filter applied to it.  it was fluff, and had about as much cinematic merit as xXx: state of the union.