You either love or hate Zack Snyder by now. The director of Watchmen and 300 was down-to-earth and full of enthusiasm when I joined a group of about seven other press in a roundtable at San Diego Comic-Con to talk about the new director’s cut of the film. Snyder dished about his passion for movies, the film’s long running time, his favorite scenes, and more.

I sat next to this guy!

Q: What can we expect from the director’s cut?

Zack Snyder: I know the director’s cut, for me … I understood that a three hour and ten minute movie, that’s a deal. I was briefly under the illusion that that might sail. I was like, ‘Yeah, it’s awesome!’ I showed it to the studio and they were like, ‘Are you high?’ So then, you know, I understood that we were gonna have to make it short. It wasn’t like they were twisting my arm and putting a gun to my head … though that would have made me feel better. Really the director’s cut, it’s different for me. People always go, ‘Oh, so what are the deleted scenes?’ and I don’t really look at it like that. This is the movie, you know? Firstly, I made a movie that when shown in theaters, it doesn’t fit. It was the wrong-sized movie. That thing doesn’t really fit in the theater. So we do it so that it can be shown. [Laughs] So that’s the difference, and I think the director’s cut is just a better movie—for me, anyway. And it’s just a better … It’s more Watchmen-y, if there’s such a thing. So as far as what to expect, I think that if you’re a fan of the graphic novel, or even a fan of movies in general, it’s just a richer movie.

Q: The graphic novel is pretty epic, and you’ve got to do a lot of cutting down, as you say, to get it in theaters. What was the hardest thing to cut out?

Snyder: Yeah, I mean, once you cut Hollis’ death, and you start to cut back on Hollis overall, you know, it was a big deal. It’s little bit of a house of cards, so you pull one out and the whole thing starts to wobble like it’s going to fall down. That was the hardest thing to do, and when we did it, we were sitting there and we were like, ‘Okay, let’s try it. We’re gonna take it out.’ And it works, but it sucks.

Q: Can you relax now that the big fans of the graphic novel have pretty much accepted the movie? I remember last year at Comic-Con you were very nervous, and kind of like, ‘I don’t know if this is gonna fly.’ Do you feel better now?

Snyder: Yeah, I feel pretty good. I also feel good just recently over the last couple of weeks. A lot of people who have maybe liked the movie who haven’t had exactly what they wanted; a lot of it was people who are saying that the director’s cut’s awesome. I think that … that’s cool, because they’re the hardest ones, the ones that really like Watchmen. The movie I guess everyone has … When you do that genre of movies, and you write comic book movies, and you don’t like Watchmen, you’re hard to please. So for a few of those guys to come around and be like, ‘Yeah, the director’s cut’s all right!’ You know, for me, that’s cool. Those guys are hard to get anyway. They pretty much hate everything.

Q: There’s been a lot of resurgence of 3D movies. Has there been any consideration of adding that or making that part of Watchmen?

Snyder: [Laughs] I don’t think we ever really talked about it. It’s kind of awesome, but no.

Q: Was there ever any discussion with the studio or anything saying you need to cut this back?

Snyder: They did. They said, ‘What are you doing? This man is naked, and he’s expensive.’ The one thing I will say is that we were supported because they knew we were going to cut this big Manhattan scene, and they finished it anyway, which was really cool. Because I remember they were twisting my arm a little bit, and they were like, ‘Okay, we’ll finish your crazy movie, if you’ll just help us and see if we can get it shown on Imax.’ I think ever since DVDS really came out the idea of director’s cuts had become a thing that was kind of universally accepted. And almost every movie has a director’s cut now. For this movie it really works. The thing with this cut is that when we finished this we were like, ‘Okay, that’s the movie!’

“Because, in the end, all a director has is a point-of-view.”

Girls Entertainment Network: When you were making the movie, how did you approach adding your own style and commentary while keeping so close to the graphic novel?

Snyder: I think it’s something you can’t think about too hard. It’s one of those things where you just go … Your personality’s gonna get in the movie. You can’t help it, you know, it’s just gonna get in. So the thing is you’re letting that happen, I think, more than trying to make it happen. If you start going, like, ‘Oh, how am going to make this my own?’ then you’re going to end up with some other thing. This is the shot I want to do, this is the story I want to tell … then I see it from here. The cool thing about a movie is of course that you’re basically …Like, my favorite movies are movies where the directors are pushing you around. It has personality. I don’t try to do that, but I just try and say, ‘Okay, I think this.’ Because, in the end, all a director has is a point-of-view. If you give up your point-of-view then you might as well just say, ‘Whatever everyone thinks! Let’s take a vote! Who wants to shoot the shot from over here?’ I think that for me, in a motion picture experience, I want the director to be out of control. You write the illusion; the illusion of life is that we’re picking which way we go down, and it kind of makes you feel like it’s happening to you. I think that’s why people love movies, because it is a story in the end. People love stories; they love fables, you know … It’s universal.

The director also discussed the inclusion of the comic-esque Black Freighter sequences added to the director’s cut:

Snyder: Because the movie was not designed a hundred percent for The Black Freighter to be woven through it, we retrofitted it a little bit. We knew we were going to try to do it. I think it works and it’s a really interesting experience, and if you’re a fan of the graphic novel, three hours and thirty-nine minutes of Watchmen is pretty hardcore. Yeah, it’s a different thing. But it’s fun.

Q: How much did 300’s success contribute to you getting Watchmen?

Snyder: Oh, one hundred percent. Without 300 there was no Watchmen. There was no Watchmen like this. The Watchmen movie that gets made without 300 is a complete PG-13, two-hour movie. For sure. I don’t know what that is. It’s a superhero movie, that’s what it is. It’s a sequel-able superhero movie. That’s what you would have gotten without 300, for sure.

GEN: What was one of your favorite scenes in the movie to film?

Snyder: My favorite scenes in the movie … Okay, first of all, shooting Manhattan was weird, because Billy’s in his light suit and it’s just odd. But Billy’s so cool that it’s fun, because he’s just a hilarious dork in a great way. He’s super smart and really just a great guy to be around; he just challenges you every second. So all that stuff was fun to shoot just because Billy’s awesome and just the weirdness of having someone … When you make a movie, especially a visual effects-driven movie … You shoot it for real, and when you get the effects back, it’s like, ‘Wow, that’s the movie.’ And I knew that’s what it was going to look like, because I had been looking at this blue screen for so long that I kind of thought that was the movie. I kind of thought Billy was gonna be in this light suit in the movie. So shooting the scenes with Billy, I found that … You know, I love action, so in the end, the Comedian’s death was kind of the funnest scene for me, even though it was the first scene we shot. But we had scheduled it right, and we had enough time to do it right, so it was fun to do.

“… the illusion of life is that we’re picking which way we go down, and it kind of makes you feel like it’s happening to you. I think that’s why people love movies, because it is a story in the end.”

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