May the naysayers reading this stir uncomfortably in their seats.

Most people I know who have read and liked Alan Moore's Watchmen, but not all of them, still persist in believing this unattainable grail that is a Watchmen movie will never get made. It seems to be some sort of chic to pretend like you appreciate things on a higher level than everyone else and that this thing should remain untouched for fear of sullying your tastes. Yet after years of these people sitting in their towers of correctitude, it looks like their elitism is about to crumble down around them. It appears one man finally has a grip on this thing.

In an interview with IGN, director Zack Snyder lays out his plans for his upcoming adaptation of the hard hitting and twisted superhero story. He reveals a couple of key points which should push all the right buttons for movie fans and comic book geeks alike. In terms of content, he insists that they aren't updating the story. According to the man himself, it will be set in the Cold War 80's and it will be true to the source material. So true in fact, that they're reluctant to cut anything out:

"I will tell you that the draft of the script is long. It's so long in fact that when we turned it in, we turned 'The Black Freighter' stuff in as a separate script so as not to scare them too much. We were like, 'Here's your script. Oh, here's your other script!' They were like, 'Oh, great!'"

People who've read the book will know the Black Freighter story as one which runs parallell to the main plot. Serving as a narration device, the story is told through a boy reading a comic book about a pirate ship journeying to attack an unsuspecting town and a man's race to get home and warn his family. As successful a storytelling device as it is, it can't be argued it's not the first candidate for the cutting room floor:

"I want 'The Black Freighter' stuff in it ... It will all depend on how [the studio] likes it. I feel like they don't really question it, like, 'Why, what is this?' But we've designed the movie so that it works without it. We have the places designed where that story would go and then if they want it, [they have it] for like extended theatrical or limited theatrical, or definitely for DVD. That's the one cool thing we have is DVD, and in my opinion it's not exploited nearly enough. [We could use that] to create the three-hour version of Watchmen. And [as a director] I'm totally fine with that, but I feel like that's a battle I haven't lost yet, so I'm not going to concede to it yet."

When talking about the production itself, Snyder et al. still seem to be surfing that grey area. Or should I say "green screen area":

"We're doing some conceptual discussions about production methodology, things of that nature, things like, 'Will it be a green screen movie or will it be a real movie?' And I think that we have kind of found the reality of the movie. There are moments that are green screen, moments that are real. Basically I think with Watchmen it'll take every trick, every tool to get this world, this Watchmen world. I feel like probably the green screen stuff is going to be [the] Mars and Antarctica [scenes], and — of course — Vietnam. All that stuff is in the movie right now, absolutely."

So, let me see. Cold War? Check. Extended cut? Check. Mars? Check. After all the beating around the bush the secret to this projects progression seems to be simple. Don't change what doesn't need changing. Read the full interview here.