HBO’s Watchmen Will NOT be an Adaptation of the Comic

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A lot of fans had their interests piqued when HBO announced that Damon Lindelof would be developing a Watchmen TV series for HBO. There has been some backlash, however, after it was reported that the show won’t feature any of the main comic characters and is set in the modern era. As it turns out, this version of Watchmen won’t be an adaptation of the comic, but the comic is still considered canon in this universe.

Damon Lindelof has wrote this lengthy letter on Instagram to address all of the worried fans of the material.

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Day 140.

A post shared by Damon (@damonlindelof) on May 22, 2018 at 11:00am PDT

Here’s a small excerpt:

“We have no desire to ‘adapt’ the twelve issues [Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons] created thirty years ago. Those issues are sacred ground and they will not be retread nor recreated nor reproduced nor rebooted.

They will, however, be remixed. Because the bass lines in those familiar tracks are just too good and we’d be fools not to sample them. Those original twelve issues are our Old Testament. When the New Testament came along, it did not erase what came before it. Creation. The Garden of Eden. Abraham and Isaac. The Flood. It all happened. And so it will be with Watchmen. The Comedian died. Dan and Laurie fell in love. Ozymandias saved the world and Dr. Manhattan left it just after blowing Rorschach to pieces in the bitter cold of Antarctica.

To be clear. Watchmen is canon.

Just the way Mr. Moore wrote it, the way Mr. Gibbons drew it and the way the brilliant John Higgins colored it.

But we are not making a “sequel” either. This story will be set in the world its creators painstakingly built… but in the tradition of the work that inspired it, this new story must be original. It has to vibrate with the seismic unpredictability of its own tectonic plates. It must ask new questions and explore the world through a fresh lens. Most importantly, it must be contemporary… The tone will be fresh and nasty and electric and absurd. Many describe Watchmen as “dark,” but I’ve always love its humor – worshipping at the altar of the genre whilst simultaneously trolling it. As such…

Some of the characters will be unknown. New faces. New masks to cover them. We also intend to revisit the past century of Costumed Adventuring through a surprising, yet familiar set of eyes… and it is here where we’ll be taking our greatest risk…”

Based on the news, it looks the story focuses on a group of policemen. We don’t know exactly how the comic is going to end up connected to the series, but I am up for a sort of “continuation” to the Watchmen mythos.

With the oversaturation of superhero  movies today, I’m curious what kind of commentary this Watchmen has to bring. After all, the original comic also put a dark mirror on the colorful world of superheroes. Why shouldn’t this “adaptation” do the same?

Besides, Watchmen doesn’t need another onscreen adaptation. The Zack Snyder film is as faithful as it can get.

HBO’s Watchmen still doesn’t have a release date.