After watching the twenty five minutes of Watchmen footage in Hollywood a week back, I told Zack Snyder that I would be sneaking into a test screening of his film at my earliest opportunity. Six months is too long to wait, I told him. He said that he had already told Warner Bros to expect lots of fans to sneak into screenings. ‘Don’t worry,’ Warner Bros replied. ‘We have ways of dealing with the fans.’ Zack smiled and said that he knew Warner Bros was underestimating just how hardcore this fanbase was.
Now is the time to prove it. Collider has received word that Watchmen is testing tomorrow in Portland, Oregon at the Regal Lloyd Center 10 at 7pm. There will be guys with clipboard and paper tickets around the theater and general environs asking people if they want to see a free movie early. They will not tell you what movie they’re recruiting for. They may tell you it’s from the director of 300, they may tell you it’s a comic book movie, they may just play it really vague. They’re looking for a virginal crowd – ie, people who are not fans of the comic, and maybe not even comic fans in general – so if you show up, pretend that you’re just Joe Sixpack and that you thought Sarah Palin was winking at you in the debates.
The problem with this info getting out is that there’s enough time for the test screening to get moved or canceled. I kind of wish Frosty had sat on this until tomorrow, but the info is out there, so I wanted to share it with all the PDX readers.
By the way, Zack didn’t seem concerned about fans sneaking into test screenings. If anything, he seemed to welcome it. Anything that will help him get his two hour forty five minute cut through the studio.
If you do get in, drop me a line. I’d love to hear your reaction.