Watchmen TV Series [HBO]

[lithiumkatana17]

I'm surprised no one has posted this here yet.

Watchmen is officially hitting the silver screen at HBO. Damon Lindelof (The Leftovers, LOST) will be at the helm of the project. It will be a reboot, and not a continuation of Zack Snyder's film (which I'm sure will make Tres happy).

http://comicbook.com/dc/2017/06/20/watchmen-reboot-in-development-at-hbo

http://www.gamesradar.com/what-you-should-know-about-the-watchmen-tv-series-coming-to-hbo/

 

[Ite]

Makes me happy too! This would work SO WELL as a 12-Part miniseries (although, nothing beats the book.)

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Great news indeed. Thanks for sharing it, lithy.

 

[lithiumkatana17]

Hopefully HBO won't feel the need to dumb down the material since it will be a series. I read that was one of the main complaints with Snyder's movie.

And here's to hoping that we get a Silk Spectre that I don't detest every moment she's on screen.

 

[Cthulhu]

I do hope they keep the general atmosphere, the movie was maybe a little more gritty and grimey than the original material, but it was fitting.

Also I hope they can get some of the actors, they weren't (iirc) big name actors and I'm sure they'd fit in with the TV series. Notably the Comedian and Rorschach.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

Some of the actors were great choices, yeah (Comedian, Rorschach, Dreiberg), but I do think the atmosphere was off. Mostly because of the aesthetic. I was looking for something that looked more like "All the President's Men" than "Batman Forever"/"Batman and Robin." Hopefully the HBO team doesn't think the cinematography is something worth carrying over.

 

[jazzflower92]

A mini tv series could work in their favor.It could focus on things that they movie couldn't.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

What have you got in mind? In all the issues I had with the movie, I never really felt it didn't spend enough time with anything it needed to -- just that it didn't stick the landing on much.

 

[Cthulhu]

IIRC the comic book series did a bit more with flashbacks / the history, which the movie kinda skipped over / summarized in a montage.

 

[jazzflower92]

What have you got in mind? In all the issues I had with the movie, I never really felt it didn't spend enough time with anything it needed to -- just that it didn't stick the landing on much.

It's just the fleshing out of the characters and the ending that needed to really be more in tune with the comics. Movies are fine, but mini series have shown that it helps bring the true nature of the story to the fullest.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

IIRC the comic book series did a bit more with flashbacks / the history, which the movie kinda skipped over / summarized in a montage.

Which, to me, is what a movie adaptation of something like this should probably do where possible. That "The Times They Are a-Changin'" sequence was brilliant, and the best part of the movie.

It was also the last point the movie bothered to be a movie, but that's getting away from my point (but also not really).

I do think the flashback about Jon Osterman's accident that turned him into Dr. Manhattan could have been fleshed out a tad (or at least done without the voice of the most boring narrator to ever blight the cinema, holy fucking shit) -- but what I would have probably done there, rather than beginning the movie with the Comedian's fight/death scene, is use those three and a half minutes (maybe a little more, if needed) to instead introduce Osterman's story at a steady, engaging pace. Begin with him on his ninth birthday receiving a clock from his father who tells him that time has weight and power -- but then show him at 16 hearing of the atomic bomb and watching his father throw a clock's innards out a window because the Theory of Relativity has made time meaningless (which is ... you know ... Dr. Manhattan's whole schtick).

Anyhow, show us the rest of what happens to him (going to Princeton, attending Einstein's lecture, becoming a physicist, meeting Wally Weaver and Janey Slater), and end this sequence with Osterman's accident, death -- and sudden resurrection (which would actually matter at this point in the narrative, but was meaningless where we got it in the existing adaptation). Then cue that amazing "The Times They Are a-Changin'" sequence ... and then implement all the other changes I would make.

I could go on for a long time yet, but I will stop there.