Damon Lindelof of The Leftovers reportedly developing Watchmen HBO project
Consider this the sort of news that is meant to set the internet ablaze on an early Tuesday evening: Damon Lindelof is looking at Watchmen as his next project.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Lindelof is developing an adaptation of the Alan Moore comic series, one of the most famous of its kind of the past several decades, as some sort of series. Zack Snyder, who directed the feature film version, is currently not involved in the project. This is a hugely ambitious project, given that Watchmen is insanely difficult to adapt because of all of the varying moving parts and complicated themes of the story. Trying to follow the text exactly is close to impossible.
Yet, if anyone could do the material justice, it’s probably Lindelof given that he grew up as a huge fan of the comic and also is coming off of two of the greatest TV series of the past two decades in Lost and The Leftovers. It’s a little shocking to see him dive back into another TV series so soon after the latter show ended on HBO, but then again, it’s going to be a LONG time before Watchmen makes it to the air — provided that it ever does, given that HBO has not even confirmed the news yet that Damon is working on the project. It’ll need a pilot, that will need to gestate, and then maybe after that you get a series order. At the earliest, maybe this show could come together for 2019 given how long it would take this show in post-production to get together.
One other challenge here? Probably cost, given that this is such an expensive endeavor bringing so many different characters who are so heavily stylized on screen. We’ll commend Snyder for capturing the visual essence of the comic beautifully, but what the movie had in style it lacked in soul. There was something more that was needed for the adaptation, and unfortunately, we didn’t get to see that within the movie’s extensive run time. (The length of the comic also proves further that a series is the better way to go for getting everything out there in the universe.)
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