Superhero blockbuster Watchmen gets London launch

The $120 million comic book adaptation Watchmen, one of 200’'s most eagerly awaited films, premiered in London yesterday, aiming to repeat the success of superhero hits like Iron Man and The Dark Knight.

The red carpet launch of the special effects-laden action thriller is the culmination of years of to-ing and fro-ing over scripts, budgets and, finally, a legal dispute between rival Hollywood studios.

Directed by Zack Snyder, whose 300 was a box-office winner in 2007, Watchmen is based on a 1986 comic book series of the same name written by Briton Alan Moore and illustrated by compatriot Dave Gibbons.

As with other movies based on his stories, Moore has distanced himself from the film, which hits cinemas next week.

Asked if Moore was likely to watch the movie, deemed “unfilmable” by some in the business, Snyder said: “Look, you know Alan has famously said ‘I don’t want anything to do with it’ and I just try and respect that as much as I can.”

Watchmen is set in an alternate 1985 United States, where the Doomsday Clock charting US tensions with the Soviet Union, is permanently set at five minutes to midnight.

When one of his former colleagues is found murdered, masked vigilante Rorschach sets out to uncover a plot to kill and discredit all superheroes, both past and present.

The film contains scenes of sex and violence, earning it an R rating in the United States meaning under-17s can only see it with a parent or adult guardian, limiting its commercial potential.

Snyder said the success of 300, his ultra-violent depiction of the legendary battle between Spartans and Persians at Thermopylae in 480 BC, had given him more freedom.

“I think that 300 really helped us to say, okay, look, it can be rated R.”

The fate of the film was in doubt until last month, when studios Warner Bros and Twentieth Century Fox reached a settlement in a copyright infringement dispute.

Warner Bros produced the film, but Fox sued Warner last year to stop its release. Fox, which acquired the rights to the Watchmen story in 1986, claimed it had a continuing stake in the project.

Warner was also behind The Dark Knight, the Batman sequel which was last year’s biggest grossing film globally with ticket sales of $1 billion.

Iron Man, starring Robert Downey Jr, was another superhero hit grossing $582 million worldwide, according to ticket tracking site www.boxofficemojo.com.