IGN have an interview with Guillermo del Toro where he reveals he was offered the chance to bring The Watchmen to the big screen:
“"You know, at one point or another, Larry Gordon and Lloyd Levin asked me if I wanted to do The Watchmen and I just couldn't get my head around The Watchmen being two or three hours long. I always thought that the series depended on almost-miniseries build-up."Check out here too, where del Toro talks about effects for The Hobbit:
del Toro did go on to praise the trailer's faithful recreation of the work, however. "I think Zack Snyder is a brilliant visual creator and everything in the trailer seems right - if not completely dead-on. To be absolutely honest, I even got a little bit of a geekgasm."
Like Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson, del Toro has a soft-spot for the traditions of model-making and real-world workshop effects - something that he intends to carry through to The Hobbit.
He explained, "You have to be very careful not to rely on a single tool – and this is another thing that I share a passion for with Peter Jackson. We both are huge fans of 'old-world' techniques like maquettes, models, miniatures, paintings – and in the case of The Hobbit, I do intend to continue this trend and bring much more animatronics into the mix.
"We need to keep that art form alive, because it brings a textural power to the movie that ultimately affects the content. The creatures somehow seem more tactile and more tangible than CG."
