While director Zack Snyder’s Watchmen film came out in 2009, the debate over the film’s worth continues. Was it a good adaptation of the beloved Alan Moore graphic novel? That debate is being reopened again after producer Joel Silver criticized Snyder, suggesting that a Terry Gilliam version may have been better.

Last week, Silver sat down with ComingSoon.net to promote Non-Stop, but the interviewer asked about projects that Silver wished happened. One of those was a Watchmen film directed by acclaimed Brazil filmmaker Gilliam.

“It was a much better movie,” Silver told the site. Silver went on to explain Gilliam’s vision for how the film would end, adding that Snyder was a “slave” to Moore’s original novel. However, Silver did say at the end that he thought Snyder’s final product was a good movie. “Zack did great stuff in it!”

Snyder did change the ending from the novel though and told The Huffington Post that he thought Gilliam’s ending was “completely insane.”

The Man of Steel director, who is also working on the follow-up, explained that he really made Watchmen for himself and that it’s probably his favorite movie.

“I just love the movie and it was a labor of love,” Snyder explained. “And I made it because I knew that the studio would have made the movie anyway and they would have made it crazy. So, finally I made it to save it from the Terry Gilliams of this world.”

Snyder also went into detail about the time the movie came out, noting that 2009 was when Internet fanboys were at the height of their power. He suggested that had it come out after Avengers, the general public might have seen it as a satire.

“The morality tale of the graphic novel is still told exactly as it was told in the graphic novel -- I used slightly different devices,” Snyder told the Huffington Post. “The Gilliam version, if you look at it, it has nothing to do with the idea that is the end of the graphic novel. And that's the thing that I would go, ‘Well, then don't do it.’ It doesn't make any sense.”

Snyder is currently working on Warner Bros.’ Batman and Superman movie, which won’t be out until 2016.

So, what do you think of Snyder’s Watchmen Would you have preferred Gilliam as director?

image courtesy of Amazon