At 8:00 p.m. last night, Dr. Manhattan's 100-foot-tall ghostly visage was hovering over the River Thames to herald the release of Watchmen. Can you think of a better way? As you'd expect from someone as indifferent as the good Doctor, he didn't bother donning even a comically tight Speedo for his European brethren, though we hear things were mercifully fuzzy for those who might get offended.

The whole thing was pulled off thanks to an enormous water screen and the largest projector in the world. A shot of the Comedian's smiley badge was also projected onto the side of a building in London, as well as exclusive, specially-made footage to promote the movie.

Click Continue to see the Watchmen projectors in action.

From the press release:

MANHATTAN ARRIVES IN LONDON
NEWS OF AN EXTREMELY SPECIAL WATCHMEN EVENT
THAT TOOK PLACE IN THE RIVER THAMES

Time: 8.00pm
Date: March 4th 2009

London, 4 March 2009 - To celebrate the Paramount Pictures UK release of the
hugely anticipated and revered Watchmen (in cinemas 06.03.09), at exactly
8pm GMT, London's River Thames gave birth to a Watchmen spectacle that was
beyond the thinkable. Dr Manhattan, the blue skinned, super-powered being
beloved of all Watchmen fans, appeared above the murky depths of the Thames
to a height of over 70 feet and towered over all those who dared to attend.

This dramatic, one-off spectacle was created using the world's biggest water
screen projector. The water screen, moored especially for this occasion in
the middle of the Thames between the London Eye and The Shell Building,
created an enormous vertical screen of water that extended to 72 feet in
height and 100 feet across. Specially created, never to be seen again
Watchmen footage, was projected onto the screen to showcase Dr Manhattan's
translucent and shimmering form in dramatic and gigantic effect -an
excellent and exciting medium to see Dr Manhattan in all his super human
glory as he hovered over the city in true Watchmen style!

A complex, multi-layered mystery adventure, "Watchmen" is set in an
alternate 1985 America in which costumed superheroes are part of the fabric
of everyday society, and the Doomsday Clock--which charts the USA's tension
with the Soviet Union--moves closer to midnight.

When one of his former colleagues is murdered, the outlawed but no less
determined masked vigilante Rorschach sets out to uncover a plot to kill and
discredit all past and present superheroes. As he reconnects with his
former crime-fighting legion--a disbanded group of retired superheroes, only
one of whom has true powers--Rorschach glimpses a wide-ranging and
disturbing conspiracy with links to their shared past and catastrophic
consequences for the future.

Their mission is to watch over humanity...but who is watching the Watchmen?