The latest blockbuster has some Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti ties, and not because it was shot here.
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The last time most people in Pinckney saw him, Wesley Coller was a dropout, punk-rock skater with a Mohawk.
Man, is he over that now.
The Eastern Michigan University grad could be the next Joel Silver ("The Matrix") or Harvey Weinstein ("Lord of the Rings"), with today's release of the anticipated Hollywood blockbuster movie he co-produced - the granddaddy of all graphic novels, "Watchmen."
The Watchmen are costumed heroes who guard an alternate-universe 1985 America. After the story opens with a Watchman's slaying, complex questions arise about who is watching the Watchmen. And about who - and what - are good. Or evil.
The darkness isn't new for Cruel & Unusual Films; its logo is a pigtailed anime girl wielding a bloody ax.
But the movie isn't about violence, Coller said during a phone interview from Los Angeles. Rather, "it says there is not violence without consequences," he said.
Coller, 36, and his wife Celeste, toil with studio president and film director Zack Snyder, and his co-president and wife, Deborah Snyder.
Snyder's 2007 flick, "300," with Coller as associate producer, grossed about $450 million by some estimates.
Coller was about five when he moved from the Ann Arbor-Ypsilanti area to Pinckney.
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