Watchmen by Terry Gilliam

Many fans of this graphic novel may believe that Zack Snyder’s adaptation failed on quite a few levels. However, he wasn’t the first director to tackle this superhero novel – before him, in the early ‘90’s, Terry Gilliam (Twelve Monkeys, Brazil, and some other awesome movies) attempted to bring these heroes to life.

In his script, the twist at the end would have seen Ozymandias going back in time and stopping the creation of Dr. Manhattan, with the rest of the superheroes (Nite Owl, Rorschach, and Silk Spectre) ending up being mistaken as some people dressed like their favorite superheroes.

Besides considering this script as being too meta, the studio also said that this movie would have required a massive budget (for that time, at least) of over $100 million. Nonetheless, Terry Gilliam would have been the best choice for a director of Watchmen, because he has always managed to bring the weird and unfashionable into the mainstream.