Hollywood maverick Terry Gilliam once said that it would cost a million dollars a page, Bourne supremo Paul Greengrass was having sets built before the rug was pulled from under him but 16 years after it was first published 300 director Zack Synder is mid-way though filming the Citizen Kane of comic books, Watchmen.

Watchmen has been passed from studio to studio, with Warner Bros handing the project to uber-producer Joel Silver who then passed it onto Universal who then handed it back to Warner and after the success of the 300, they asked Zack Synder to direct the project. Synder’s adaptation of 300 was brilliantly done - taking the comic as his storyboard for the movie, he recreated Frank Miller’s epic graphic novel frame for frame.

With this in mind, you only have to visit the Watchmen movie site and view the pictures taken from the set to realize that Synder is fully respecting writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbon’s world (according to set reports Synder always has a copy of Watchmen to hand).

Of course, Alan Moore is distancing himself from the movie, as he has done every time that one of his projects has been adapted, but Gibbons has visited the set, met with Synder, designed the poster that was unveiled at ComicCon last year and has written a set report where his enthusiasm for the project is contagious.

As a fan of the comic, Synder fought to keep the comic's ending and 1985 setting (pervious drafts of the script had ignored the ending making it more "up-beat" and screenwriter David Hayter moved the film to the present day before backing away from the project) knowing that anything other than a faithful recreation would disappoint the thousands who have read the comic. He knows that he has to earn the respect of the fans and so far he doesn't seem to have put a foot wrong.

None of that would matter if the film had been poorly cast and Synder, avoiding the big names - at various points Tom Cruise and Jude Law were cast for Ozymandias and Joel Silver wanted Arnold Schwarzenegger to play Dr. Manhattan – has cast mainly unknown actors.

Without a showy cast the story is given a chance to breathe, allowing audiences to settle into the world that Synder is creating rather than waiting for the marquee-named actor to turn up. Synder knows that he has to please the studio, especially with $100million riding on the movie, but he also knows that Watchmen is an ensemble piece, where the focus is on the narrative arc rather than any one character.

Patrick Wilson, cast as Nite Owl, is a veteran of independent cinema, a proven actor who can carry the weight and melancholy of the character and Jackie Earl Haley, given the task of filling the trench coat of fan favourite Rorschach, is more than capable of being both psychotic and sympathetic, traits that any actor playing this difficult role would need. Synder’s choices might not please everyone but he has looked for an actor to fill the part, rather than an actor to please the studio and it's this conviction to tell this story that is coming though.

At any point this film could all go wrong but for some reason Synder hasn't got comic and movie fans tracking his every move. It might be that all attention is on Indiana Jones, Iron Man and The Dark Knight but Synder, his crew and his cast are quietly working away in Vancouver, hopefully turning Moore and Gibbon’s masterpiece into the movie that it deserves to be.

For further information vist: www.watchmencomicmovie.com or www.watchmenmovie.warnerbros.com.