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Paramount Dumps Watchmen

Paramount has stopped development on the highly-anticipated film adaptation of the classic comicbook series, THE WATCHMEN, according to VARIETY. The studio has now put the project into turnaround, allowing producers Larry Gordon and Lloyd Levin to shop the Paul Greengrass (THE BOURNE SUPREMACY) directed project to other studios.

The film was originally a Universal project with David Hayter adapting and possibly directing. Then when it moved to Paramount, where REQUIEM FOR A DREAM director Darren Aronfosky was set to helm the pic, but left to film his own pet project, THE FOUNTAIN. One of the major issues plaguing the project has been a staggering $100 budget for a property not widely known in the mainstream.

Based on the acclaimed 1986 12-issue comicbook miniseries written by Alan Moore with art by Dave Gibbons, the story is set in a world where superheroes have become government backed. The murder of a federally-backed mercenary named The Comedian spurs insane vigilante Rorschach, the last solo superhero, to investigate who has begun killing the "masks."

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