Watchmen, Alan Moore's iconic '80s comic book series, isn't only known as one of the greatest graphic novels of all time—it's been listed as one of the greatest works of modern fiction, up there with Catcher in the Rye and To Kill a Mockingbird.
Since the late '80s, there have been many attempts to adapt Watchmen into shows and films—the most high profile of which was a forgettable 2009 blockbuster from noted slo-mo enthusiast Zack Snyder. That movie, which most people unfortunately associate with the title, was not good! It has an unimpressive 65 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and it warped Moore's comic into a dark, dorky, pointless mess filled with cringeworthy music and baffling sex scenes.
That's why it's very good news that The Leftovers co-creator Damon Lindelof is attached to create a Watchmen TV series for HBO. This is very promising for a number of reasons:
From Lost to The Leftovers, Lindelof has an impressive pedigree for prestige television.
We also know how he handles adapting from other works of fiction. The Leftovers was originally a 2011 novel by Tom Perrotta, which Lindelof expanded on with his three stunning seasons of the HBO show. This also means that we can trust someone like Lindelof to work outside the confines of Alan Moore's original vision, something that will be necessary to sustain multiple hours of the show.
This is a dense, lengthy graphic novel with many characters, themes, and intersecting plots. It's something that absolutely needs more time to develop than two and a half hours of a novel. Snyder's 2009 film felt rushed and shallow—partially because he tried to fit the entire graphic novel into a single movie.
We can at least hope that Lindelof will refrain from using slow motion in every other scene or such goddamn obvious music choices as "All Along the Watchtower." (Get it?)
Most importantly, we know he's a fan of Watchmen. "From the flashbacks to the nonlinear storytelling to the deeply flawed heroes, these are all elements that I try to put into everything I write," he told Comic Book Resources in 2009. Then he told the Observer that same year: "It's the most married-to-the-original-text version of Watchmen that could've been made. I want to keep it sort of insular," he said, referring to the multiple translations that have come from trying to translate the source material. "It's OK with me if people don't understand it because they don't deserve to understand it."
