Well now that Josh and I have wasted a lot of breath arguing about the rumored ending for the Watchmen movie, it turns out what we suspected may be true. The ending of the movie that test screened in Portland last week, which was significantly different from the ending in the book, may have just been a ruse to see how much the audience could handle.

io9 picked up the latest rumor from Comic Book Resources, which says that last week's screening was intentionally leaked to the press in order to bring in the diehard Watchmen fans who might be most attached to the original ending. In case you haven't heard yet-- and a big fat SPOILER WARNING just in case-- the comic book ends with an attack on New York City orchestrated by a giant squid kind of monster, while the movie that screened last week showed the same attacks, but committed more or less through nuclear technology.

It's a canny move, taking your big gamble months in advance to see how much fanboy whining the movie can handle. Who knows if this is true, though, and if the occasional fan complaints will be enough for them to use the squid, an ending that has apparently been shot and would be ready for the film's release. What confuses me is all the parts of the film that lead up to the ending. The squid is alluded to throughout the comic, and it's unclear how they would be able to throw in a new ending without changing much of the film but came before it. But again, like everything else regarding Watchmen, this is all just speculation. The giant squid ending is just one more part of this movie we don't know anything about.