On November 10 Watchmen: The Ultimate Cut hits the stores on DVD and Blu-ray. It's really your choice which one you go for because apart from the Blu-ray boasting BD-Live features, they contain identical stuff.

The Ultimate Cut is the third cut of Watchmen. The first two releases were the Theatrical Cut and the Director's Cut.

Trying to find confirmation of what the exact differences are is like pulling teeth, but from what I can gather the theatrical cut is 161 minutes long, the Director's Cut is 186 minutes long, and the Ultimate Cut is 215 minutes long. A major difference is that The Ultimate Cut includes the animated story Tales of the Black Freighter woven into the actual film. This story runs for 26 minutes, which by my calculations means there is an extra 3 minutes of footage not in the Director's Cut in addition to the animated footage. And, of course, there's also tons of new extra's on the Ultimate Cut.

Full details after the jump:

First, here's the original Watchmen feature trailer:

The Ultimate Cut specs

Disc 1

• Watchmen: The Ultimate Cut film (Run time: 215 minutes)
• Audio Commentaries with Zack Snyder and illustrator Dave Gibbons

Disc 2

3 Hours of Special Features:

• The Phenomenon: The Comic that Changed Comics (RT: 28:50) – Learn how the comic was created
• Real Super Heroes, Real Vigilantes (RT: 27:28) – Explores the fascination and psychology behind real-world vigilantes
• Mechanics: Technologies of a Fantastic World (RT: 16:46) – Takes a look at the filmmakers process of turning the plausible mechanics behind the characters and tools of the Watchmen graphic novel into cinematic reality
• Watchmen: Video Journals
• My Chemical Romance Desolation Row (RT: 3:16)
• Under The Hood (RT: 36:00) – A retrospective look on the biography by Hollis Mason (the original Nite Owl) and the world of those who stood for hooded justice
• Story Within A Story: The Books of Watchmen (RT: 26:00) – See how a comic-within-a-comic acts as parallel commentary to  Watchmen.

Disc 3

• Digital Copy of the Theatrical Version

Blu-ray disc 4 / DVD disc 4 & 5

• Watchmen: The Complete Motion Comic (RT: 325 mins) – Overseen by Watchmen illustrator Dave Gibbons and produced by Zack Snyder, the motion comic adds motion, voice and sound to all 12 chapters of Watchmen’s drawn panels.

I haven't seen a trailer for the Ultimate Cut, but you can check out this one that was released back in July in preparation for the release of the Director's Cut:

Finally, if anyone reading this actually owns all three versions, feel free to post a comment with any corrections to the above that you can.

Links to the various Watchmen releases including the Ultimate Cut (and there are more than I've listed), are below:

See larger image Watchmen: The Ultimate Cut (DVD) Director: Eric Matthies, Jake Strider Hughes, Zack Snyder Starring: Jackie Earle Haley, Patrick Wilson, Carla Gugino, Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup Rating: R (Restricted) List Price: $20.98 USD New From: $14.49 In Stock Used from: $23.71 In Stock Release date November 10, 2009.

See larger image Watchmen: The Ultimate Cut [Blu-ray] (Blu-ray) Director: Zack Snyder Rating: R (Restricted) List Price: $59.99 USD New From: $198.99 In Stock Used from: $155.00 In Stock Release date November 10, 2009.

See larger image Watchmen (Director's Cut + BD-Live) [Blu-ray] (Blu-ray) Director: Zack Snyder Starring: Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Malin Akerman, Carla Gugino, Jackie Earle Haley Rating: R (Restricted) List Price: $14.98 USD New From: $7.84 In Stock Used from: $3.00 In Stock Release date July 21, 2009.

See larger image Watchmen (Director's Cut) (DVD) Director: Zack Snyder Starring: Jackie Earle Haley, Patrick Wilson, Carla Gugino, Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup Rating: R (Restricted) List Price: $20.98 USD New From: $5.09 In Stock Used from: $4.42 In Stock Release date July 21, 2009.

See larger image Watchmen (Theatrical Cut) (Widescreen Single-Disc Edition) (DVD) Director: Zack Snyder Starring: Jackie Earle Haley, Patrick Wilson, Carla Gugino, Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup Rating: R (Restricted) List Price: $5.98 USD New From: $2.08 In Stock Used from: $0.30 In Stock Release date July 21, 2009.

See larger image Watchmen: Director's Cut (Amazon Exclusive Nite Owl Ship) [Blu-ray] (Blu-ray) Director: Zack Snyder Starring: Jackie Earle Haley, Patrick Wilson, Billy Crudup, Malin Akerman New From: $136.00 In Stock Used from: $109.99 In Stock Release date July 21, 2009.

See larger image Watchmen: Tales of the Black Freighter & Under the Hood [Blu-ray] (Blu-ray) Starring: Gerard Butler Rating: NR (Not Rated) List Price: $14.98 USD New From: $3.75 In Stock Used from: $2.78 In Stock Release date March 24, 2009.

Tags: Watchmen