Well, it does appear they're going to make a Watchmen movie after all, though it's now slated for 2006, not the 2005 referenced at imdb. Attempting to squeeze that story into less than two hours (into less that ten, even) isn't advisable. It will have to be very much its own story, be only the loosest of conceptual adaptations, and will have to be judged on its own merits as a completely separate work. To do otherwise is to declare it doomed from the start. (There are still copies of Sam Hamm's script, now some 16 years old, kicking around on the web if you're interested in one attempt at such a screenplay. Key elements from the original comics are changed, but many of the scenes are reasonably intact.)
I see the screenplay is currently credited to David Hayter, who has gotten the assignment (I'm supposing) largely on the strengths of his screenplay work on the two X-Men movies.
He's also one of the screenwriters on two other 2006 comics-to-film projects, Iron Man (They've worked the alcoholism into the origin?) and The Black Widow (Ex-KGB agent gone freelance?), in the latter film making the jump to being both writer and director. That didn't work so well for David S. Goyer, imho, judging by last year's Blade Trinity, though it's hardly fair to damn Hayter for that.
When one considers that Flash, Ghost Rider (with Nicholas Cage playing the lead), the third X-Men and Superman Returns films are all slated for 2006, too, along with others I'm sure, it's going to be a major year (for better or worse) for comics-to-movie projects. The dates are, of course, loose at this stage, especially in the cases where they haven't even done the casting yet.
As for this year, I see that FOX has already decided to move the Fantastic Four movie has shifted back a week from its originally planned release for the July 4th weekend. Though they deny it as a reason, it seems fairly clear that FOX didn't want their film foursome to compete with the Steven Spielberg/Tom Cruise remake of War of the Worlds, which will be opening June 29th, leading into that key holiday weekend. I can hardly blame them for the move, as opening weekend box office is critical to any film. The F.F. will wait one week to appear on July 8th. War will probably work very well as a spectacle, just what's looked for in a summer blockbuster, but when a see a synopsis that makes it a film that focuses on a family's desperate attempt to survive, I can't help but wonder how fast H.G. Wells will be spinning in his grave.
Before all that, DC gets at least two cracks at an audience with February 18th's debut of Constantine and June 17th's Batman Begins.
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