My Chemical Romance is set to cover a classic Bob Dylan tune for the upcoming “Watchmen” movie.
Director Zack Snyder told MTV News that MCR frontman Gerard Way, being a “huge fan” of the graphic novel on which the film is based, made the first move.
“Honestly, he contacted me, just as a fan,” Snyder said of Way, who studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York City and is working on a comic-book series for Dark Horse called “The Umbrella Academy.”
“[He wanted] to say like: ‘I hope the movie’s cool.’ And then we went, ‘Hey, maybe we can do something.’”
Snyder, who previously directed the epic “300,” revealed that they are currently working with MCR on putting together a song for the end titles, with one of the possible covers being “Desolation Row” off of Dylan’s 1965 album “Highway 61 Revisited.”
The director said he has listened to some of the band’s initial Dylan demos and described them as “pretty freaking cool.”
MCR’s cover aside, the movie’s soundtrack is set to feature original versions of songs from the ’60s through to the ’80s, including Jimi Hendrix and Simon & Garfunkel.
Created by Alan Moore, the “Watchmen” series was first published from 1986 to 1987 and revolves around a group of unconventional superheroes who are forced to confront a conspiracy.
The graphic novel made it onto Time Magazine’s 2005 list of “the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present,” where it was praised as “a heart-pounding, heartbreaking read and a watershed in the evolution of a young medium.”
The movie, starring Patrick Wilson, Billy Crudup and Jeffrey Dean Morgan, will hit theatres in spring 2009.
Although Gerard Way is probably best known as the frontman of My Chemical Romance, fans may also know the singer as the creator of the Dark Horse comic “The Umbrella Academy.” Now, Way’s story is making the leap to the big screen.
