HBO and Damon Lindelof’s upcoming adaptation of Watchmen, the DC Comics series by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, will be an original story, Lindelof has said in a five-page open letter to fans via his Instagram account.
“We have no desire to ‘adapt’ the twelve issues Mr. Moore and Mr. Gibbons created thirty years ago,” Lindelof wrote. “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.”
Lindelof added his Watchmen series won’t be a sequel, but “in the tradition of the work that inspired it”, it’ll be an original story. “It must ask new questions and explore the world through a fresh lens,” he added. “Most importantly, it must be [sic] contemporary.” That means transferring Watchmen from the eighties to our times.
He is also interested in mining the comics’ humour, something Zack Synder stayed away from in his 2009 film adaptation. In addition, the HBO series will also have new characters and new faces, an avenue in which Lindelof said he wishes to take their “greatest risks”.
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