Comic adaptations are one of the biggest crazes in showbiz today, and HBO may be getting in the game in a brand new way. A TV show based on the classic DC Comics series Watchmen may happen on the premium cable network, and a man who might be the perfect showrunner is on board. Damon Lindelof of The Leftovers and Lost is in talks to bring the characters to the small screen.
The Watchmen project is still very early in development, and THR reports that an official deal has not been finalized that will get Damon Lindelof to work. Lindelof's The Leftovers recently aired its series finale on HBO; the reveal that he's already in talks to return to the network indicates that HBO was quite satisfied with what he brought to the table with The Leftovers. Lindelof has spoken about how he read the original Watchmen comics back when they were released in the 1980s, and he could be the ideal person to adapt the legendary characters of The Watchmen to television.
Interestingly, this is not the first time that HBO has looked into developing a series based on the Watchmen comics. Zack Snyder -- best known nowadays, of course, for his work with DC blockbusters like Batman v. Superman -- directed the film version of Watchmen back in 2009, and he met with execs at HBO in 2015 about possibly creating a TV version. At the time, it was unclear if the show would be another adaptation of the comics or a sequel to the movie. Whatever the plan, a Watchmen show never materialized, and Snyder is not connected to the prospective Damon Lindelof project.
The 2009 movie undoubtedly introduced many people who had never heard of the Watchmen comics to the universe, but it wasn't quite the box office hit that comic-based movies are nowadays. Zack Snyder had to condense a classic 12-issue series into a feature film, which meant that there were necessary cuts to the source material, even if some have opined that the movie suffered for sticking too closely to the comics, which were written by Alan Moore and published from September 1986 - October 1987. Perhaps a TV show could do more justice to the source material by hitting more of the big moments and expanding on characters in ways that are not possible in a movie.
The heroes of Watchmen are hardly the best-known in DC lore, but superheroes are so popular nowadays that we can bet that there would be an audience for a Watchmen series. Given that HBO is only a couple of years away from the end of Game of Thrones and there's no set date for any of the Thrones spinoffs, execs may want to get another show based on a popular saga going as soon as possible.
That said, there has been chatter of a different Watchmen project. Rumor has it that Warner Bros. was working on an R-rated Watchmen animated movie, which... is one way to go. We'll have to wait and see what happens next. Stay tuned to CinemaBlend for the latest in TV news, and be sure to take a gander at our summer TV and Netflix premiere schedules to see all your viewing options now and in the coming weeks.
