Patrick Wilson Thinks Zack Snyder’s Watchmen Paved the Way for the Avengers

Watchmen star Patrick Wilson revealed that he has high praise for Zack Snyder and believes he laid the foundation for the Avengers.

Snyder’s Watchmen is based on a DC comic series of the same name and premiered in 2009. The film explores an alternate reality where superheroes emerge between 1939 and 1977, changing America’s history. 

However, trouble ensues, and the lives of the superheroes are threatened. That’s when a team of morally ambiguous vigilantes set out to confront them. 

Fans are sort of divided in their opinion on the film, but Wilson is convinced that Snyder’s movie inspired the concept of Avengers. 

In an interview with ReelBlend, Wilson opened up about the legacy of Watchmen.

Patrick Wilson had nothing but praise for the Snyder film and admitted that it was one of the rare films that he felt the need to rewatch. 

Wilson even went on to explain how Watchmen helped pave the way for Marvel’s Avengers:

Watchmen is the only movie of mine that I have watched front to back since a premiere. That movie’s awesome. I wanted to share it with my son. I also probably wanted to fast-forward the scene with me and Malin [Akerman] in the ship. I needed to stay close by. No, I wanted to look at it as an older guy, as a filmmaker. I knew Zack [Snyder] was kind of, he was ahead of the curve. You know, it’s weird to say that audiences weren’t ready for it, but you need a movie like that. You need movies to go so dark that then Avengers can go so light. I do believe in that. But yeah, I love that movie. I’d love to do that movie now. I would, honestly, I think that’d be so awesome to just do it now.

Watchmen premiered in 2009 when MCU was at its humble beginnings, and DCEU had not even started. It was one of the first modern superhero films to feature the ‘flawed hero’ archetype. 

Today its inspiration can be seen in both MCU and DCEU creatives.  

Firstly, it highlighted how comic books can be brought to life in live-action creatives and the unique subjects they can tackle. Watchmen was directly responsible for Warner Bros. picking Zack Snyder as one of the first architects of the DCEU by appointing him to direct Man of Steel.

Also, one of DCEU’s central themes is the concept of a flawed superhero. Films like Suicide Squad, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Birds of Prey, etc., have all been structured around the theme introduced to modern cinema by Watchmen.

They blur the line between good and evil and have been built on central themes like humanity’s corruption, morality, and the complexity of right vs. wrong.

Watchmen’s influence is also rampant in the MCU. The MCU introduced characters like Pietro Maximoff (Quicksilver) to highlight the disastrous effects of superheroes on the world. This is also the central theme of Captain America: Civil War. Additionally, Watchmen’s influence can also be seen in modern creatives of the MCU, like Secret Invasion. 

Zack Snyder’s Watchmen changed the course of superhero history forever and is still inspiring future generations to take up this genre and create something exquisite!

About Watchmen

Watchmen is a 2009 American superhero film based on the 1986–1987 DC Comics limited series of the same name co-created and illustrated by Dave Gibbons with co-creator and author Alan Moore choosing to remain uncredited.

Directed by Zack Snyder from a screenplay by David Hayter and Alex Tse, the film features Malin Åkerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Carla Gugino, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Patrick Wilson.

A dark and dystopian deconstruction of the superhero genre, the film is set in an alternate history in the year 1985 at the height of the Cold War, as a group of mostly retired American superheroes investigate the murder of one of their own before uncovering an elaborate and deadly conspiracy, while their moral limitations are challenged by the complex nature of the circumstances.