From October 1987 until October 2005, a live-action film adaptation of the Watchmen series became stranded in development hell; producer Lawrence Gordon began developing the project at 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros., the parent company of Watchmen publisher DC Comics, with producer Joel Silver and director Terry Gilliam, with the latter eventually deeming the complex comic "un-filmable". During the 2000s, 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 cancelled over budget disputes; and in October 2005, the project returned to Warner Bros., where Snyder was hired to direct; Paramount remained as its international distributor whereas Warner Bros. would distribute the film in the United States. However, 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 modelled his storyboards on the comic, but chose not to shoot all of Watchmen using green screens and opted for real sets instead.