Gerard Butler in Watchmen movie... kinda

The rumors have been flying around for months about whether or not the "Marooned" pirate story, which appears as a comic story within the original Watchmen comic, would make it into Zack Snyder's film adaptation.
Well Gerard Butler, (300, Phantom of the Opera), has told Empire magazine that he will definitely be involved in an animated version that is being produced for the film.

"I’m going to do the voice of the captain. They’re going to do it in the style of a Japanese anime and I’m totally stoked."

For the uninitiated, Tales Of The Black Freighter is a pirate genre comic book read by a young boy that hangs out by a Manhattan newsstand ion the Watchmen graphic novel. It tells the tale of a castaway’s mental and physical deterioration and damnation as he tries to intercept a ghost freighter headed for his hometown. The comic panels from this pirate story are intertwined with panels from the main comic’s storyline, and is often accompanied by the “off center” street wisdom of an older news vendor.
Further into the interview, Butler talked a little about the Marooned storyline and how excited he was upon reading the script for the first time.

"The little bits that have been added define it so much more. It’s very dark and there’s just something so descriptive and scary. It’s this descent into madness but explained in such a sane way that you totally feel it yourself. By the end, my heart was pumping!"

The Empire article stated that the animated pirate story would appear on the DVD release of the film and not in the theatrical release, but Zack Snyder has suggested that the story may actually have a chance to set sail into the theatical release in 2009.

Snyder wrote on Watchmencomicmovie.com, "It is my intent right now, and of course all this could change, to create a version of the “Black Freighter” that thread throughout the movie. As I write this, I have already shot the ins and outs of the News Vendor and Bernard… So we’ll try them in the film and then certainly we’ll at least see them on the DVD, but if it works awesome, then it works awesome, and it could end up in the film. I just want to make the best movie I can."

Whether or not it makes it into the theatrical release, it will be interesting to see Snyder’s version of the story, and to hear everybody’s favorite Spartan voice its dramatic lead.
2.28.2008

The "Watchmen" movie is scheduled to open in theatres March 6, 2009. Here is an image of the Dave Gibbons drawn promo poster.