Did Watchmen Kill A Killing Joke Movie?

We almost got a Killing Joke movie in 2009

We are finally getting a movie adaptation of one of the best comic book stories of all time, The Killing Joke, later this year. The book has always been highly acclaimed and despite it’s subject matter and graphic violence, it is kind of surprising it took this long. DC has completely owned the straight to video animated comic book movie market for seemingly decades now. And most of the key players involved in the current Killing Joke adaptation have been involved with Batman for literally decades now (Paul Dini, Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill). It seems like this should’ve been a thing years ago. Well, it almost was.

Warner Bros Artist Phil Bourassa was working on an R rated animated version of The Killing Joke back in 2009. And then Watchmen happened.

"In 2009 I started working on an animated adaptation of The Killing Joke under the supervision of legendary Animation artist Bruce Timm. Two weeks into the project we were told to stop development because Watchmen had under performed at the box office and WB had seemingly lost faith in R rated superhero movies."

Obviously that doesn’t seem to be a concern now as we are set to get a possibly R-rated version of the Killing Joke this Summer.

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This seems like another example of studio executives learning the wrong lesson. Watchmen didn’t fail because people didn’t want to see an R-rated superhero movie. It had so many problems that had nothing to do with R ratings. And I like Watchmen, I have it on blu-ray, but it’s a problematic film. And of course now they have given Zack Snyder, the director of Watchmen, the keys to the DC movie universe. Let’s hope that turns out better.

h/t Gamespot