The 1987 “Watchmen” Comic Book Series, which was a mostly unheard-of franchise published by DC Comics, currently now has a cult following thanks to Zack Snyder’s 2009 movie adaptation. HBO apparently wants to capitalize on that and is reportedly now in talks with “Lost” co-creator Damon Lindelof to produce a brand new television series adaptation based on the graphic novel.
A closed story
The original comic book series involved a very straight forward story set in an alternate history where superheroes had emerged in the 40s, effectively changing the outcomes of the world wars.
The story focuses on a team of retired superheroes investigating the death of one of their own only to discover a sinister plot that could change the world as they know it. Due to the way the story is told, many of the characters are effectively unusable for future stories, which might present a problem for new adaptations as there isn’t really much leeway in terms of creating new storylines.
Failed adaptations
Snyder’s 2009 adaptation of “Watchmen” had received mixed reviews from fans but did fairly well at the box office. The movie managed to rake in over $185 million in gross sales worldwide. However, other attempts to capitalize on the series’ new-found popularity hadn’t really faired that well.
A video game, titled “Watchmen: The End is Nigh,” was a commercial failure. This was also the case for the comic-book prequel series, called “Before Watchmen,” which some have argued was unsuccessful due to the lack of involvement from the original comic’s creators.
Not giving up
According to reports, HBO had apparently already tried to get a “Watchmen” TV project off the ground back in 2014.
The network reportedly got in touch with Snyder to create the new series, but for unknown reasons, the project eventually fell apart. As reported by Variety, the upcoming new television adaptation will no longer involve Snyder this time around. Instead, the new television series is planned to be created from scratch. It is not yet clear if the new show will be telling the same story as outlined in the comics or if it will explore different stories involving the franchise’s different characters.
Despite some of the characters already being dead within the main storyline, there are still a lot of other superheroes within the franchise that can be explored.
At the moment, HBO’s “Watchmen” television series is still in the deal-making stage. The network has had a lot of planned shows that never made it on air, which means that fans will just have to wait and see if this will be the case for the new project.
