Damon Lindelof says not to expect HBO’s Watchmen to be a direct adaptation

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Pleasing fans when it comes to adapting a classic comic book property to screen is never an easy task. Regardless of how hard you try to represent the material (while still adding your own signature flavor to the mix), it's likely that you'll be eaten alive by members of your target audience. Damon Lindelof knows this, though. It also sounds like he's willing to meet the daunting task of tackling a legendary series head on, when he adapts Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ iconic 1986 comic WATCHMEN for HBO.

Recently, while participating in an interview on the Bookish with Sonya Walger podcast, Lindelof spoke about what fans can expect when his version of WATCHMEN comes to the premiere cable network. 

“[Adapting] may be the right word, at the end of the day,” said Lindelof. “Do you watch Fargo at all? I wouldn’t call Noah Hawley’s version of Fargo an adaptation, because the movie exists inside of his world, and so everything that happened in the movie Fargo, it does precede the television show Fargo. So they find a bag of money in the first season, and you go, ‘Oh, that came from the movie.’ But it’s also, Noah is pulling from other areas of the Coen brothers’ canon, so it evokes like Lebowski, but it’s also his own thing.”

I can't help but notice that the LOST co-creator failed to mention when the events of his series will take place. Will the new show occur before or after the comic? What if it takes place during the original story, but doesn't always center on the Watchmen team members? Could it be that Lindelof's version will introduce a host of new characters to follow through the Watchmen Universe? I think that would be pretty cool. After all, we already have a more-than-admirable page-to-screen version of the classic tale courtesy of Zack Snyder's 2009 film. Perhaps it's time to go outside the box with these characters?

Also during his talk, Lindelof addressed that he's aware of Watchmen creator Alan Moore's distaste for the idea of his work being adapted for the screen. “I think it’s widely known that Alan Moore does not want Watchmen to be adapted,” Lindelof mentioned, “so I’m playing a bit of a game of semantics here in saying, ‘I’m not adapting Watchmen!'”

Oh that David Lindelof, he's a sly one.

Are you pumped for the WATCHMEN TV series? Would you like to see the original story represented, again? Or, are you cool with the idea of following new characters through the WATCHMEN mythos? Let us know in the comments section below.