Comparing Adaptations: ‘Watchmen’ And ‘Wanted’

Comic book adaptations are difficult. Comics are a medium that has a lot of leeway in terms of fantasy and what writers can get away with in a story. Trying to transfer that faithfully onto a screen can lead to a lot of headaches. The important thing to remember is that there’s no one right formula to take. It’s absolutely more art than science as the writers and directors have to figure out the best way to capture the essence of a story while still honoring as many of the original elements as possible. And a great way to acknowledge this art is by comparing two films that did it in two completely different ways. Watchmen and Wanted are great examples.

Watchmen is based on a landmark graphic novel about superhero deconstruction by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. In order to adapt it, director Zack Snyder was extremely faithful to the original text. He even took certain iconic comic panels and tried to recreate them. However, he made subtle changes to present the story for non-comic audiences. The biggest change: Ozymandias (Matthew Goode) framed Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup) for the destruction in New York City rather than manufacture an alien menace. It changed the story tremendously, but the outcome was more or less the same, thus preserving the heart and theme of the original work.

Wanted, starring James McAvoy, was a much different type of adaptation. The core premise of the comic, the fact that McAvoy’s character had a legacy of being a supervillain, was changed to him being an assassin. This was done for the sake of making the film more palatable to a wider range of audiences. Because of this change, the entire second half of the film plays out very differently than the comic. And yet, the ideas that lay at the heart of the story still exist. Both the comic and the film are about a man breaking free from his mundane life and achieving something extraordinary. So comparing Watchman and Wanted can be viewed as a lesson in adaptations. One film tried as hard as possible to stick with the source material while the other had no qualms about breaking free and doing its own thing. But what’s even more remarkable is that even though they took two different approaches, both still retained the essence of the comics.

Watchmen is now streaming on Max.