Watch The 'Watchmen' Trailers For The Two-Part Animated Film Adaptation
Chapter I releases August 13 on digital, August 27 physical. Chapter II may or may not be this year.
Well, this started being written back when the Suicide Squad Isekai “Super Villain Party” trailer released at Anime Expo Thursday wasn’t giving enough new material for its own article that wasn’t too regurgitated, so before the English dub cast was announced but going back to Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League’s announcement article when writing the article for its teaser reminded me of another recently released DC trailer that I hadn’t gotten around to. With San Diego Comic-Con coming back around again, it’ll be about a year since Justice League: Crisis On Infinite Earths and their new Watchmen adaptation were announced to be part of their reliable direct-to-video animated slate. What looked to be two films became four with Crisis turning out to be a trilogy. Now, with the release of the Watchmen trailer, that four is becoming five as the latter’s story being told in two chapters, though apparently it had been development in such format since 2017. You could say it has It going on. It starts August 13 with the release of Watchmen: Chapter I. Or Watchmen: Chapter 1. Even the trailers use both.
It was about a month ago that the teaser trailer was released. Only running about 40 seconds it does manage to get its mission across, highlighting characters like Doctor Manhattan, Nite Owl, and Rorschach as they investigate a series of recent superhero murders. It was at Annecy that the split release was revealed, preparing audiences that Chapter II would be out in 2025 and not squeeze in the 4.5 months left in the year by the first chapter’s release. However, IGN has since reported it will. So we’ll have to wait and see Watch the teaser below.
Tuesday brought much more: A full trailer for Chapter I, that August 13 digital release date, with a 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray release on August 27, and a full rundown of cast and crew, though not every character assignment has been revealed. The official synopsis reads “In an alternate world history set in 1985, the murder of a government-sponsored superhero draws his outlawed colleagues out of retirement and into a mystery that threatens to upend their personal lives and the world itself.” It is the third adaptation of the groundbreaking twelve-issue comic series written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons, released from September 1986 to October 1987, following the 2009 film directed by Zack Snyder and the 2019 HBO miniseries continuation created by Damon Lindelof. Gibbons serves as a consulting producer for this adaptation.
The cast features Matthew Rhys as the Dan Dreiberg Nite Owl, Katee Sackhoff as the Laurie Juspeczyk Silk Spectre, Titus Welliver as Walter Kovacs aka Rorschach, Joker mainstay Troy Baker as Adrian Veidt aka Ozymandias, Adrienne Barbeau as Laurie’s mother Sally, the previous Silk Spectre, Corey Burton as Captain Metropolis, Michael Cerveris as Jonathan Osterman aka Dr. Manhattan, Jeffrey Combs as Edgar Jacobi aka Moloch, John Marshall Jones as Hooded Justice, Yuri Lowenthal as Wally Weaver, Geoff Pierson, probably best known to this crowd as the Jay Garrick Flash on Young Justice as the Hollis Mason Nite Owl, Kari Wahlgren as Janey Slater, Rick D. Wasserman as Edward Blake, The Comedian and those roles unknown for Grey DeLisle, Kelly Hu, Max Koch, Phil LaMarr, Dwight Schultz, and Jason Spisak. The film runs 83 minutes and is produced and directed by Brandon Vietti from an adaptation by DC and Marvel comics vet and Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski. Jim Krieg and Cindy Rago are producers and Sam Register, Larry Gordon and Lloyd Levin are executive producers.
Bonus features “The Art of Adaptation: Introducing the Story” and “Dave Gibbons and Watchmen: Chapters I-VI” include interviews with the filmmakers including Gibbons and Straczynski, who got to bring back Babylon 5 last August with the release of the direct to video animated film The Road Home. Watchmen: Chapter I is rated R and thus its trailer is red band. It can be watched below.
