The Keene Act and You (circa 1977)

An exceptional way to "inform" viewers of the world in which they are about to explore in the world of WATCHMEN. Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons crafted a dense book about superheroes and the real-world implications of people walking around dispensing justice while wearing their pajamas...

But how do you communicate all that within the 100+ minute timeframe of a motion picture? Answer: you don't.

You walk hand-in-hand with your marketing dept. and create material for the DVD that you can release prior to the movie. You craft an entirely separate revenue stream by taking a portion of the book and producing an animated story from it.

The folks at Warners didn't just look at the movie and say, "How do we sell this MOVIE?" They looked at every part of the buffalo that is the Watchmen PROPERTY and said, "How do we pull people into this WORLD, and make sure that fans will be satisfied and people will be able to further explore the implications of this STORY?"

I always said that I didn't think you would ever be able to film WATCHMEN as a movie. I always saw it as a mini-series for HBO...

But I was thinking linearly. I wasn't embracing the internet (Al Gore hadn't invented it yet) and its myriad, non-linear ways of telling story. The folks at WB have crafted a multi-course meal of story here. You can opt out of the main course (the movie) and still receive satisfying chunks of content.

Bravo.