Watchmen Screenwriter Alex Tse Talks About Adapting the Groundbreaking Comic

Film adaptations of comic books are a dime a dozen in Hollywood these days, with a track record that suggests studios are pumping out more Batman Forevers than Dark Knights. But what happens when your task is to bring the words of history's most acclaimed graphic novel -- and one of Time magazine's 100 greatest novels of all time -- to the big screen?

Enter Alex Tse, a San Francisco native who is the co-screenwriter of the much-anticipated Watchmen adaptation, which opened last week to the tune of $55 million. Tse first came onto the scene as the writer of 2004's multiethnic crime drama, Sucker Free City, directed by Spike Lee. Now with the success of Watchmen, he's in demand but still making time to return to his roots. Hyphen caught up with Tse before his visit to the 2009 San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival to learn about his climb from a kid in journalism camp to bona fide Hollywood screenwriter.

Read the interview in our web features area and comeback here if you have a comment. (Unfortunately, our publishing system doesn't allow commenting on articles.)

Harry Mok

Editor in Chief Harry Mok wrote about growing up on a Chinese vegetable farm for the second issue of Hyphen and has been a volunteer editor since 2004. As a board member of the San Francisco and New York chapters of the Asian American Journalists Association, Harry has recruited and organized events for student members. He holds a master’s degree in journalism from the University of California, Berkeley, where he was also a graduate student instructor in the Asian American Studies Department.

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