Watchmen is a 2009 American superhero mystery film directed by Zack Snyder and starring Malin Åkerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Patrick Wilson. It is an adaptation of the comic book of the same name by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. The film is set in an alternate history 1985 at the height of the Cold War between the West and the Soviet Union, as a group of mostly retired vigilantes investigate an apparent conspiracy against them and uncovers something even more grandiose and sinister.

Following publication of the Watchmen comic, a live-action film adaptation was mired in development hell. Producer Lawrence Gordon began developing the project at 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros. (parent company of Watchmen publisher DC Comics) with producer Joel Silver and director Terry Gilliam, the latter eventually deeming the complex novel "unfilmable". During the 2000s (decade), Gordon and Lloyd Levin collaborated with Universal Studios and Paramount Pictures to produce a script by David Hayter; Darren Aronofsky and Paul Greengrass were also attached to the project before it was canceled over budget disputes. The project returned to Warner Bros., where Snyder was hired to direct – Paramount remained as international distributor. Fox sued Warner Bros. for copyright violation arising from Gordon's failure to pay a buy-out in 1991, which enabled him to develop the film at the other studios. Fox and Warner Bros. settled this before the film's release with Fox receiving a portion of the gross. Principal photography began in Vancouver, September 2007. As with his previous film 300, Snyder closely modeled his storyboards on the comic, but chose not to shoot all of Watchmen using chroma key and opted for more sets.

Jackie Earle Haley (born Jack Earle Haley; July 14, 1961) is an American film actor. Establishing himself from child actor to adult Academy Award-nominee, he is perhaps best known for his roles as Moocher in Breaking Away, Kelly Leak in The Bad News Bears, pedophile Ronnie McGorvey in Little Children, the vigilante Rorschach in Watchmen, and horror icon Freddy Krueger in the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street, released on April 30, 2010. He also starred as Guerrero in Fox's drama Human Target.

Haley was born and raised in Northridge, California, the son of Haven Earle "Bud" Haley, a radio show host/disc jockey and actor.

Haley has appeared in numerous films, including Damnation Alley, John Schlesinger's The Day of the Locust, and Losin' It, as well as guest roles on TV. A well known child actor, he starred as Kelly Leak in the comedy The Bad News Bears. He also starred in The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training and The Bad News Bears Go to Japan.

He played Moocher in Peter Yates' acclaimed 1979 film Breaking Away and later in the short-lived TV series of the same name. Throughout the 1970s, he often played a tough, angry, pimply, long-haired misfit; although in the offbeat 1972 film, The Outside Man, he plays Eric, a boy apparently so desperately lonely that he tries to impress the mob assassin holding him and his mother (Georgia Engel) hostage. It has been rumored that in 1984, Haley's friend Johnny Depp accompanied him to auditions for Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street; instead of Haley being chosen for a role, it was Depp who was spotted by director Craven, who asked him if he would like to read for a part.