WATCHMEN RETURN

By Joseph~

Based on a screenplay written by David Hayter

Inspired by Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

Fade in:

INT: Viedt Enterprises. Day. Flash forward.

Music cue: Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah"

small white letters burn onto the screen.

"March 21, 1987"

the date fades out as we pan right to see...

a tall, well dressed man leaning on the massive "window wall" in his immaculate, ornate office.

The man's name is Adrian Viedt.

The room is massive, aside from a desk in front of the giant window, facing the rest of the office, there were numerous display shelves, showing various media and paraphernalia, all themed around Adrian.

The office is dark, no lights are on. The only source of light is the gargantuan window overlooking the city, from its vantage point high up on one of the top floors of Viedt Enterprises' New York HQ.

Adrian gazes out into the city, watching, hoping, and silently weeping. His conscience finally caught up with him. He stares at the sky; it is dark, ominous, and raining. Adrian stares at all the industrial and bleak smog rising toward the sky, making the view all that much more depressing. The rain gently raps on the massive window.

Adrian sits down on his swivel-chair still facing the window, he slowly turns around to his computer, and clicks on a tab that says "archives", it brings up several cascading windows each holding an image of a newspaper.

most of the headlines were about masked vigilantes or "superheroes", mostly of their daring deeds.

As Adrian scrolls seamlessly through the open windows, the headlines become grimmer, seeming to frown and protest against vigilante activity and methods.

he scrolls back a few windows.

Adrian focuses on one dated December 14, 1986.

The headline read "NITE OWL AND SILK SPECTRE STOPS BAR RIOT"

He turned to his desk and grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the top drawer, he the grabbed a small tumbler. He poured the whiskey, and let his mind wander…

The whiskey flowed from the bottle into the glass, the frame filled with the image of the glass, full of whiskey.

INT: Inner city bar. Day. Flashback.

The frame is still filled with the image of the glass, however the setting has changed, we begin to see a smoke filled bar as we ease out.

A man is thrown onto the bar counter, knocking the glass off, breaking it. His bruised and bloodied face fills the frame.

Several punches landing, bones breaking, and groans can be heard in the background.

Ever so slowly we pan left…

Two superheroes are brawling with several neo-Nazi skinheads. One is wearing a bronze colored armor, complete with cowl and cape; the other is a female, she wears yellow and black latex. The first superhero twirls, catching one in the jaw with his steel-lined boot, his cape gracefully flowing behind him. He grabs another's arm, twisting it, breaking it; the distinct sound of crunching bone can be heard. She grabs another's head smashing it on the floor. After a minute all the skinheads are incapacitated. All eight of them lay bloodied on the beer stained floor; the woman, slowly walked over towards a small, African American, teenage girl, trembling, huddled in a corner, under a table.

She slowly moves the table.

She reaches out her hand to the girl; she's sobbing, and shaking, scared like crazy.

The girl throws herself on the woman. The girl clings to the woman as if her life depended on it.

INT: NYC Diner. Day. Flashback.

A man sat in a booth next to a window, overlooking the busy street.

He had finished his meal, the leftovers sat messily on the table. He was now reading the newspaper, after a bit, he folded it back, front page up, and dropped it along with a tip on the table; he walked out of the diner to join the hundreds of new Yorkers commuting to their jobs. We pan to see the headlines of the newspaper which read:

"NITE OWL AND SILK SPECTRE STOPS BAR RIOT!"

Fade out.

INT: Viedt Enterprises. Day. Flash forward.

Adrian sips the whisky slowly, still gazing out the window. His eyes well up with tears, but his face remains solemn.

A shadow shifted behind him.

A stealthy figure slowly rose behind Adrian, he is completely unaware.

The intruder quickly grabbed Adrian's shoulder, he drops the whiskey glass.

The glass slowly falls, the whiskey fall and splashes on the marble floor. The glass shattered when it hit. In the pieces of glass slowly spinning, and turning in mid-air we catch a reflection of the fight, however the attacker in constantly encompassed by a heavy shadow.

A piece of glass picks up the light from outside, and reflects a huge, blinding lens flare, which brings us to…

INT: Alleyway. Night. Flashback.

A woman with straight, dark brown hair, clad in yellow and black latex, was fighting several gang members in a dark alleyway. She moved so fast the light of streetlamp could barely touch her. Her fists flew in every direction, striking every target head-on. Blood sprayed, bones crunched. After a few minutes of her graceful, precise, ballet-like fighting, most of the gang members were down and beaten. More flooded in. One halted in his steps, pointed and stared at one of the rooftops in anger.

Gang Member: "LOOK, ANOTHER ONE!"

A silhouetted figure dropped down from the rooftop, the moonlight reflecting off his bronze colored armor and cape, he landed gracefully. His mask and goggles provided a frightening view for the gang members. For a second, as he slowly and majestically rose to his feet, and stood at his full six feet tall, everyone froze and watched the intimidating spectacle. They quickly shook it off and ran toward him to continue the fight; he fought with a fierce intensity, dispatching the gang members with a frightening efficiency.

The woman smiled, for a brief second he smiled back, this moment quickly ended, more gang members flooded in and the brawl extended into the street.

INT. NYC Street. Night. Flashback.

Nite Owl and Silk Spectre are being practically thrown into the street where a full-out gang war is being waged. We pan down from, a bird's eye view and zoom in close to the havoc and chaos to see fires are seen burning everywhere, small explosions, and gunfire ring through the air. The street filled with all kinds of gang members from several different gangs. Nite Owl and Silk Spectre immediately begin fighting their way through the masses of violence and killing, they tried to protect innocent civilians from the stray fire and even from intentional killing but there were too many people firing from plain fear. Nite Owl is struggling against several gang members holding him down, more come to help, Nite Owl thrusts his hand up, out of the dog pile, he is holding a remote of some kind, with various blue led lights and a thumb shaped button in the middle, he presses it.

Silk Spectre:
"DAN, HELP ME!"

We snap right to see several men holding her against a storefront window on the opposite side of the street, even too many attackers for a seasoned and trained fighter like her to stop. Dan, Nite Owl, looks at her and desperately tries to get free, a devastated look of desperation comes across Nite Owls face as we see A large six foot man slowly walks towards Silk Spectre, we see a malicious smile creep across his face, he presses his body close to hers, she turns her head away part in fear part in disgust.

INT: Dark basement. Night. Flashback.

A large tarp covers a massive vehicle of some kind, we can't see much because no lights at all are on, and there are no windows at all, we see some lights flicker through the tarp from the vehicle, named "Archimedes" the massive "Owl Ship" vehicle whirred to life, and lifted a few feet into the air. We see it blast off into the tunnel ahead of it hovering a few inches from the floor. I travels so fast into the tunnel it is gone almost as soon as it left.

INT: NYC Street. Night. Flashback.

In a fit of rage and adrenaline, Nite Owl, hurls his attackers off of him, they fall into the rest of the malevolent crown. He charges toward Silk Spectre and her attackers, viciously dispatching anyone in his path. All the sound drops out as Nite Owl reaches her, he grabs the first man holding her back, his fist collides with the man's jaw, it snaps, he throws the man behind him into the crowd, he then proceeds to kick the next man holding her back in the gut. He sweeps his sideways with the same kick. Finally he grabs the main attacker with a vicious jerk around the man's neck. He begins to unleash a torrent of deadly attacks and…

All of a sudden, a deafening hum accompanied by a furious roar pierces the noise of the crowd and everyone stops and looks up toward the sky…

We pan up to see the Owl Ship hovering a good thirty feet above the rioting crowd.

Nite Owl drops the man from his hands and pulls out the same remote again.

Silk Spectre walks toward him, as he taps a series of commands on the remote; he looks to the ship to follow his command.

It doesn't. Instead the mini guns on the side of the Owl Ship begin to spin, time itself slows down. He desperately tries punching in another series of commands, but it doesn't work. Nite Owl screams inaudibly, turns and grabs Silk Spectre, and holds her protectively against the storefront window, using himself a shield.

The guns fire, a spray of super heated bullets fly out of the barrels, striking the crowd, blood sprays in every direction, the ship turns and continues firing at the screaming and retreating crowd. A spray of bullets hit the window behind Nite Owl and Silk Spectre, shattering it, the glass dances in mid-air catching every reflection of the horror ensuing on the street, innocent people killed along with guilty people, children with adults, it didn't matter, almost every other person was shredded by a burst of gunfire. We see a person running towards the camera, a look of fear on his face, he is gunned down and falls on the frame blocking our view of the street, all we hear is countless screams and wailing.

Dan looks in horror at the massacre unfolding before his eyes. He presses the middle button on the remote; the Owl Ship shuts down and falls, crashing onto the street making an impact crater. All the lights shut off, it is lifeless. Nite Owl falls to his knees sobbing, Silk Spectre walks to him, goes down to his level, puts her arm around his shoulder and leans her head on him.

Fade out.

INT. NYC street Newsstand. Day. Flashback.

A young paperboy drops a stack of newspapers next to a busy newsstand. The headlines read:

"SUPERHERO CAUSES MASSACRE" the next line read: "SUPERHERO BRUTALITY WON'T BE TOLERATED"

Camera snaps to corner of newspaper. Small photo of crazed man wearing burnt goggles being taken away by police is accompanied by a bold headline that reads:

"MAD SCIENTIST SWEARS REVENGE!"

Fade out.

INT. Viedt Enterprises. Day. Flash forward.

Adrian fought with the man violently, in one fluid motion the attacker grabbed Adrian and threw him towards the window wall. As Adrian flew horizontically towards the window, his foot caught the desk, causing him to flip, crashing through the window head first. The glass flew in every direction, spinning and flipping in mid-air. We see the inside of the office from outside, the shadowed figure slowly creeps away toward the exit.

We hear a deafening mechanical whine…

We see the silhouette of the attacker stop in his tracks, and he spins around, to face the broken window. Wind whooshes in tossing papers and various objects around the room.

Music fades out.

Fade out to white.

INT. Dan Dreiberg house. NYC. Day. present.

We pan right across several framed pictures on a wall.

Finally the frame focuses on a picture of Dan and Laurie's wedding, at the altar when their lips were inches apart from a passionate kiss.

We pan further right to reveal a living room.

Dan is sitting, relaxed, on his couch watching a sitcom on his television.

Laurie walks in from the kitchen, and sits next to Dan on the couch, she curls her feet up and leans her head on his shoulder, he rolls his arm back and holds her.

Laurie:
"Dan?"

Dan:
"yes."

Laurie:
"My time with Jon showed me that everything we do has already been done… or, everything we think we're going to do we have already done, follow?"

Dan:
"I suppose…"

Laurie:
"what about all the rapists and murderers and even warlords who slaughter millions, if what they have or will do was already done, isn't there some…thing or someone making sure that it happens as it's supposed to? Or will the future never change from what has been set in stone?"

Dan sighs, takes off his glasses, needlessly cleaning them on his shirt.
We catch a reflection of the tv program in his glasses.

Dan:
"I'd like to believe in some sort of higher power, or destiny, so that I know we were meant to be together, and it wasn't just random chance. But… try telling that to families who lost a loved one to a vicious act of murder, for their sakes I hope there is no fate, or destiny."

They quietly hold each other.

Dan turns off the TV, and hold Laurie. They close their eyes, and allow their minds to drift…

INT. Space. N/A. Present.

We see complete darkness, a void, complete blackness.

Until…

A small dot of light appears in the center of the screen. We zoom in slowly to see, it is a blue light, and as we ease in even more we see the shape of a man.

Frame focuses on a closed eye; skin is entirely blue, and glowing.

The eye opens wide, in is entirely white, no iris or pupil… just white. We ease out to see the upper half (nudity implied, not shown) of a man drifting in space.

He stands upright, although there is nothing to stand on.

He is moving forward, we can only tell because several stars are seen passing by in the distance.

He passes like this for several minutes, looking disturbed and dumbfounded.

Suddenly he falls to his knees a stunned look on his face.

we see a quick blurred montage of flash-forwards, things that haven't happened yet, a… premonition. It is over almost as soon as it starts.

His eyes open. All expression falls from his face. He puts one arm forward as if to grab something, he lifts his palm slightly upward…

Dark swirls of dust and dark matter begin to swirl around his hand,

We can almost see the form of a man being created from his hand…

Fade out to light.