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Rorschach is back on the case.
Matthew Rhys (“The Americans”), Katee Sackhoff (“The Mandalorian”), Titus Welliver (“Lost”), Michael Cerveris (“The Gilded Age”) and Troy Baker (“The Last of Us”) are among the voice actors cast in “Watchmen Chapter I,” the new animated feature adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ seminal graphic novel. The two-part film — directed by Warner Bros. Animation veteran Brandon Vietti (“Batman: Death in the Family,” “Batman: Under the Red Hood”) and adapted by comic J. Michael Straczynski (“Sense8,” “Babylon 5”) — was first announced at San Diego Comic-Con in 2023, but no details about the cast and filmmakers had been revealed until Wednesday, when the official trailer for the project first premiered.
Set in an alternative world in which costume vigilantes are real, “Watchmen” has been hailed as a masterpiece since it debuted in 1986 and challenged the nature and morality of superhero storytelling. Rhys will voice Dan Dreiberg (aka Nite Owl), Sackhoff will voice Laurie Juspeczyk (aka Silk Spectre), Welliver will voice Walter Kovacs (aka Rorschach), Baker will voice Adrian Veidt (aka Ozymandias) and Ceveris will voice Jonathan Osterman (aka Dr. Manhattan).
For decades, “Watchmen” — with its century-spanning storyline and confrontational subject matter — proved to be a stubbornly vexing title to adapt, passing through the hands of filmmakers like Terry Gilliam, Darren Aronofsky and Paul Greengrass. But in 2009, Warner Bros. finally released a nearly three hour live-action adaptation of “Watchmen” starring Patrick Wilson, Malin Akerman, Jackie Earle Haley, Matthew Goode and Billy Crudup and directed by Zack Snyder, who took great pains to recreate the look of Gibbons’ artwork down to the finest detail. The film received mixed-to-positive reviews and earned $185.3 million worldwide. (The 2019 HBO limited series “Watchmen,” set 34 years after the events of the graphic novel, won wide acclaim and earned several Emmy awards, including for best limited series.)
The new animated feature was also approached with a vivid reverence for the original material. Gibbons served as a consulting producer and Straczynski posted on social media that his adaptation meant “strictly configuring the structure to work in a movie” and that he “saw no need to write more material or change what works in the book. It’s pure Moore.”
The rest of the voice cast for the animated film includes Rick D. Wasserman as Edward Blake (aka The Comedian) Adrienne Barbeau as Sally Jupiter (aka the first Silk Spectre), Jeffrey Combs as Edgar Jacobi (aka Moloch), Geoff Pierson as Hollis Mason (aka the first Nite Owl), Corey Burton as Captain Metropolis, John Marshall Jones as Hooded Justice, Yuri Lowenthal as Wally Weaver, and Kari Wahlgren as Janey Slater.
Grey DeLisle, Kelly Hu, Max Koch, Phil LaMarr, Dwight Schultz and Jason Spisak are voicing unspecified roles. Vietti, Jim Krieg and Cindy Rago are producers, and Sam Register, Larry Gordon and Lloyd Levin are executive producers.
“Chapter I” will debut on Aug. 13 for digital purchase and on Aug. 27 on 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray. “Watchmen Chapter II” will be released in late 2024.
Here is the first trailer.
