Watchmen DVD Details: Director’s Cut, Black Freighter Edition

Posted by Robert Fure (robert@filmschoolrejects.com) on February 18, 2009

WATCHMEN

Wow, the movie doesn’t even come out this month and we’ve already got news not just on a Director’s Cut, but also on the More More More edition! While speaking at a Press Junket today, Zack Snyder told my fellow writers and I about plans for Watchmen on DVD. It is as follows:

Summer/July: Director’s Cut. This cut will feature “99% of what we shot,” footage which Zack Snyder said he liked. The run time on this edition will be just over 3 hours long, compared to the 2:35ish run time of the theatrical version. It will be more violent, more sexy, and have more naked Dr. Manhattan. Also included will be entire scenes excised from the movie for time.

Fall/Last Quarter: The Black Freighter Edition. This title may not be the final title, but it is how Snyder identified it. He told us that they shot all the Ins and Outs of The Black Freighter pieces from the comic book, which for those of you who haven’t read it, mostly revolve around a boy and newsstand salesman. You can see these characters in the film, but they don’t have an impact on the story. The big news is that The Black Freighter, the animated movie, will be cut into the film. The animated film is said to be 22minutes long which, with the In and Out shots, will bump the presentation to about 3hours and 25minutes. Snyder referred to this release as the “fetishistic and kind of crazy” release, as it is so complete.

So there you have it, friends. Watchmen hits theaters on March 6th and there will be all sorts of awesomeness happening on DVD (and presumably Blu-ray) later this year.

How psyched are you for The Black Freighter Edition experience?

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Yaanu

I'd like to see a nice, complete Completely Uncut Edition, combining both the Black Freighter scenes and the Director's Cut. Appease to the small percentage in the Venn Diagram of DVD addicts.

I suppose I'll just wait for the fan edit.

CaptainReg0981

I don't care much of the Black Freighter but I'm too psyched for the damn movie thinking there are advance tix for this movie and then I'm planing to get the hard cover Watchmen graphic novel (20% off courtesy of Amazon.com j/k it's not true but I can get it cheaper). Holy crap Zack definitely tried to shorten the movie but I guess can't always cut the good damn parts. Thank you DVD release (and Blu-ray of course Blue Ray will have more shit than the reglr DVD).

And oh do we see more of sexy Malin and Carla rrrrrrrwoooarrrr!!

ERoBB

I want the huge 3 hour 40 minute version with all the bells and whistles.

RobertFure

Its my understanding that the Black Freighter edition will be the Director's Cut + The Black Freighter footage. It will be the absolute most complete disc they could make without putting in the outtakes. If you check the run times, when you add in Black Freighter to Directors Cut, you get the Black Freighter Edition runtime.

No word on it, but I'd bet that edition will also include the "Under the Hood" footage, which is going to be paired with Tales of the Black Freighter on a separate release. I think you'll be satisfied with the disc that comes out last quarter.

RobertFure

Just a note: These run times were approximate and given off the cuff. If you're hearing of longer editions, Zack Snyder (or the Producers) probably just gave different numbers to different groups, as they didn't have any official notes on hand or anything. There will, for now, be only these 3 releases - Theatrical (2:35ish), Directors Cut (3hrs and change), Black Freighter (3:25+hrs).

John Strickland

Is it just me, or are we getting ahead of ourselves talking about ultra-special-extended-unrated-director's cut editions of a movie we haven't seen yet?

I mean, we don't know if the movie's any good yet.

But, then again, I understand you guys need shit to write about, so I digress...

Chris

John, this is news. It isn't that they just needed something to write about. This information came right out of Zack Snyder's mouth! Why would they not report this?

Of course most of us don't know if the movie is any good, but we will soon!

RobertFure

And I feel with Watchmen and its fans, pretty much all of them know the graphic novel is too long to be entirely on the screen. By now, most people know the movie is around 2:30 and that stuff had to be cut. People want to know when/if/what they're going to see of the rest of the story. Snyder is on the ball with all this info probably to put the fans at ease. This was his way of saying "Chill guys, we filmed it all and you will see it all."

Mladen

Agreed.
It could be a ploy on the part of the production studio: "We think our movie is SO GOOD that you're going to want 3 consecutive dvd releases, and you're going to happily accept our greedy and incredibly obvious double-dipping release of two different directors cuts."

Mladen

Is it just me or does Ozymandias look just like Robin in Batman Forever/Batman+Robin? It doesn't instill confidence in me.

Watchmen DVD Details: Director’s Cut, Black Freighter Edition

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