 In August 1986 , producer Lawrence Gordon acquired the film rights to Watchmen for 20th Century Fox , with producer Joel Silver working on the film . Fox asked author Alan Moore to write a screenplay based on his story , but when Moore declined the studio enlisted screenwriter Sam Hamm . On September 9 , 1988 , Hamm turned in his first draft , but said that condensing a 338 @-@ page , nine @-@ panel @-@ a @-@ page comic book into a 128 @-@ page script was arduous . He took the liberty of re @-@ writing Watchmen 's complicated ending into a " more manageable " conclusion involving an assassination and a time paradox . Fox put the film into turnaround in 1991 , and Gordon set up the project at a new company , Largo International , with Fox distributing the film . Although Largo closed three years later , Fox was promised that they would be involved if the project was revived . 
