Damon’s Watchmen Millennial Remix
Watchmen is getting the full cable treatment that fans have been skeptical for as long, as cable TV has been a thing. With The Leftovers having wrapped its final season to critical acclaim, creator Damon Lindelof is sticking around at HBO to develop a Watchmen TV series.
Lindelof’s vision is apparently unrelated to a Watchmen series discussed by Zack Snyder (who directed the film version) and HBO back in 2015. It’s not clear how far those particular talks got, or what the actual plan for it was. HBO’s new Watchmen poses fans a big question. The question, is just what will this new series be?
So for all those cool kids on Instagram (his target audience?), a five-page open letter posted on his account appeared. In it, he expertly hacks the device of bouncing timelines in a Watchmen-esque story to suit his narrative.
It’s bizarre, he’s bizarre, but read this actual quote:
“We have no desire to ‘adapt’ the twelve issues Mr. Moore and Mr. Gibbons created thirty years ago. Those issues are sacred ground and they will not be retread nor recreated nor reproduced nor rebooted.”
Here’s part of his letter:
In any case, a 12 hour-long adaptation of the comic can be ruled out, as can a straight sequel. Perhaps some of the events of the comic will be explored in flashbacks as the show progresses, but right now, it doesn’t sound like anything we might have been expecting, and this is typical of Lindelof, introducing his obligatory quasi-religion and pseudo-science and losing fans before the project even begins, etc. Bravo, HBO, Bravo.
The first cast members for the Watchmen pilot have been revealed. Variety reports Regina King will play the lead character in the series, and she’ll be joined by Don Johnson, Tim Blake Nelson, Louis Gossett Jr., Adelaide Clemens, and Andrew Howard.
More as we have it, of course.
