With the massive San Diego Comic-Con International beginning July 24, let's take a sneak peek at my December visit to the set of "Watchmen," one of the most anticipated film panels at this year's Comic-Con.

Based on the critically acclaimed graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, "Watchmen" has been in development for years but finally got the green light under the auspices of "300" director Zack Snyder, who took the story back to its roots by setting it in 1985, the year the graphic novel came out. The story depicts a world where superpowered humans slowly began to appear in the United States after World War II, and the Cold War still looms between the United States and the Soviet Union, which seem destined for a nuclear confrontation. The novel was beloved for the tremendous amount of information within each panel, which producer Deborah Snyder, Zack's wife, said is a subtlety they were attempting to duplicate.

"It was really important to Zack to reference pop culture as much as possible," Deborah Snyder says. "All the layers, the multilayering, that's so rich in the graphic novel, to get at that."

Our visit to the Vancouver, Canada, production began with a tour of a conference room filled with numerous concept drawings that reflected the care and detail Deborah Snyder referenced. We then moved to an outdoor set that recreated almost a complete block of pre-Giuliani-governed New York.

"At one point, we talked about going to New York City, but '85 New York City doesn't really exist anymore," Deborah Snyder says. "And what a nightmare to be shooting on the streets. Then it was, 'Well, OK, how can we build something that's usable, that's gritty, but also that's contained?'"

The press watched a reenactment of a riot scene in which a crowd causes a massive explosion within a storefront. Later, we met several cast members expected to attend Comic-Con next week: Patrick Wilson ("Little Children"), who plays good guy Dan Dreiberg, better known as the second Nite Owl (imagine Batman without the dark side); another "Little Children" vet, Jackie Earle Haley, who suits up as Walter Kovacs, aka the morally sound Rorschach (Batman if he killed and was dirt poor); fast-rising Malin Akerman, who portrays Laurie Juspeczyk, or the second Silk Spectre (a powerless and sexier Wonder Woman); and Matthew Goode ("Match Point"), who play the extremely calculating Adrian Veidt or Ozymandias (the perfect man, essentially).

Filling out the rest of the cast are former "Grey's Anatomy" patient Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who plays the Comedian (the Punisher with a sense of humor), and arguably the most well-known cast member, Billy Crudup, who had to wear an embarrassingly tight motion-capture bodysuit for his role as Dr. Manhattan, a being with godlike powers who has changed the world's balance of power.

It was a busy night, the highlight of which was standing in the life-size recreation of the Owl Ship (which, rumor has it, just might make a Comic-Con appearance).

Much more occurred during the set visit, but you'll have to wait for those secrets to be revealed here.

Check out MSN's Comic-Con 2008 coverage next week for more on "Watchmen."

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