Watchmen is based on the graphic novel co-created and illustrated by Dave Gibbons and published by DC. The new series comes from Damon Lindelof and it’s set in an alternate history where masked vigilantes are treated as outlaws. This drama series embraces the nostalgia of the original groundbreaking graphic novel of the same name while attempting to break new ground of its own.
When the series was in the early stages of production, Lindelof took to Instagram about what viewers might expect of the series. “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.”
Lindelof continued on to explain where this version of Watchmen would be situated. “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.”
“I’ve been resistant to the comic book prequels and sequels, but what Damon’s doing is not that at all, it’s very far away from that,” Dave Gibbons, who co-created the series, said last year. “While it’s very reverential and true to the source material (by which I mean the Watchmen graphic novel that Moore and I did), it’s not retreading the same ground, it’s not a reinterpretation of it. It approaches it in a completely unexpected way.”
The series will star Regina King (Seven Seconds) as Angela Abraham, Don Johnson (Miami Vice) as Chief Judd Crawford, Tim Blake Nelson (Fantastic Four) as Looking Glass, Louis Gossett Jr. (An Officer and A Gentleman) as Old Man, Adelaide Clemens (Rectify) as Pirate Jenny, Andrew Howard (The Outpost) as Red Scare, Jean Smart (24)as Agent Blake, and Jeremy Irons (The Borgias) as Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias.
Watchmen premieres October 20th on HBO with 10 episodes.
