'Watchmen' director Zack Snyder launches new website (EW.com exclusive!)

Today, Watchmen and 300 director Zack Snyder is launching cruelfilms.com, the website for his production company Cruel and Unusual Films, and has provided EW.com with this never-before-seen image from one of the opening scenes from Watchmen, which opens March 6. The image, Snyder says, is one of the first glimpses audiences will have of the film’s anti-hero, Rorschach, as he shoots a grappling gun into the Comedian’s

apartment while investigating his fallen comrade’s mysterious death.

(More on the film in a bit.)

“We just wanted to have a place where people could see what

we’re up to,” Snyder tells EW.com exclusively about the site. “As a

company, we’re into a lot of cool stuff, like aesthetic and design. The

movies we make, and are making, feed a lot off of pop-culture.” The site includes a section called The Lounge, where the company — which includes company co-president Deborah Synder (who’s also Zack’s wife), and producer Wesley Coller — list what they’re watching (the anime film Appleseed), reading (Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead) and listening to (Allison Crow’s “Hallelujah”). Snyder also invites artists to submit versions of the Cruel and Unusual Films logo: A rough-and-tumble anime Catholic schoolgirl called Baby Doll who’ll be the heroine of Snyder’s in-the-works project Sucker Punch. “I always thought it would be cool, like, ‘Hey, Frank Miller, you should draw a version of Baby Doll,'” Snyder says. “[Drawing her] is kind of a fun assignment, you know, for the world.”

The rest of the site includes an eclectic collection of links to sites that have captured the company’s fancy — including the website for Violet’s Cakes, a cupcake confectionery owned by Snyder’s ex-wife — and a listing of all of Cruel and Unusual Films’ projects. Watchmen, based on the famed graphic novel, just had a massive weight lifted from its shoulders after Warner Bros. and Fox settled a legal dispute over the rights to the film — a dispute that had threatened to keep the finished film out of theaters indefinitely. The settlement, Snyder says, is “a big relief to me. I’m glad that cooler heads prevailed and the fans are not going to have to resort to any criminal acts.” He laughs. “I’m half-joking. I’m glad there’s that kind of passion [about the movie], I guess.”

More on Watchmen and Zack Snyder:
‘Watchmen’: An Exclusive First Look
‘Watchmen’: The Fox/WB suit is settled
‘Watchmen’: A chat with director Zack Snyder
A sneak peak at the ‘Watchmen’ movie

addCredit(“Clay Enos”)