Let's start with what I got wrong before. Watchmen is currently set for release in March 2009 not 2008 as I had earlier reported. A quick review of the casting thus far completed:

Jackie Earle Haley -Walter Kovacs/Rorschach **
Jeffrey Dean Morgan- Edward Blake/The Comedian
Carla Gugino-- *Pictured* Sally Jupiter
Patrick Wilson -Dan Dreiberg/Nite-Owl
Matthew Goode -Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias **
Billy Crudup- Jon Osterman/Dr. Manhattan **
Malin Akerman- Laurie Juspeczyk/Silk Spectre

**- denotes major character

Alan Moore wrote this series and had intended to use established characters but switched to a combination of little known and newly created characters when the publisher balked at using known commodities given the frank and unflattering tone of his story.

Jackie Earle Haley was last seen in 2006 art house favorite Little Children as a pedophile living with his mother and passing his days as the object of scorn, digust and harrassment. You may also remember him as Kelly Leak from the Bad News Bears. Haley pulls a plum role here as a costumed detective/vigilante in the mold of DC's own Dark Knight, the Batman.


Billy Crudup- Played guitar hero Russel Hammond in Almost Famous and lately twice played spies in Mission Impossilbe III and The Good Shepard. Here he plays central character Dr. Manhattan,the only character with true superpowers, who because of this is growing increasingly detached from the rest of humanity.


Matthew Goode also lands the important role of Ozymandias, the golden boy of the superheroes who remains publicly active when the others are forced into retirement eventually retiring on his own terms which include diclose his identity to the public and trading on it to become wealthy and powerful.