Damon Lindelof developing "Watchmen" TV series for HBO!

[theenglish]

I too wish that there were other Vertigo series being adapted. Off the top of my head Fables is an great choice (although Once Upon a Time was obviously inspired by that series). Other series that would lend themselves well to a series are Y the Last Man, DMZ, and The Exterminators. Earlier series, Sandman Mystery Theatre would be really interesting--also a real Hellblazer series on HBO could be a lot more successful than the other recent series.

 

[JD]

I'd go with Y: The Last Man or DMZ, Fables is just to close OUAT.

That second part is not what I'm saying. I'm saying the secondary themes all contribute, to some extent, to the primary nuclear war theme, if only by illustrating the contrasts. Example: what does it matter if Dan Dreiberg has sexual performance issues if nuclear war will kill everyone at any moment anyway? But those secondary themes don't so much in turn contribute to the primary one. (Whether or not Dreiberg "gets it up" is of no importance to the nukes, and whether they fire.) That's what makes them secondary, rather than co-primary, themes.

I don't mean to bash or minimize the secondary themes by calling them by that term. They're there, and they're interesting.

What I am saying is the notion that Watchmen is "no more about nuclear proliferation [/war] than it is about Nixon or Vietnam" is absurd, and that to not grasp that the story is primarily about nuclear war is to "completely miss the point."

I have never heard it interpreted this way before, I've only ever seen it referred to as a secondary element of the story. Are you trying to say that every other person who has analyzed the story is wrong,and only you are right?

 

[Timby]

Is there really even enough story in the comic for a TV series?

In the original? Probably not. But DC did publish that awful 37-issue Before Watchmen series in 2012, so there's some extra material right there.

Personally, I think the director's cut of Watchmen is pretty much pitch-perfect.

 

[Gaith]

I too would love a Y: The Last Man HBO/Netflix series, provided it employed aggressive color grading to preserve the books' vibrant use of color:

 

[kirk55555]

I two wish that there were other Vertigo series being adapted. Off the top of my head Fables is an obvious choice (although Once Upon a Time was obviously inspired by that series). Other series that would lend themselves well to a series are Y the Last Man, DMZ, and The Exterminators. Earlier series, Sandman Mystery Theatre would be really interesting--also a real Hellblazer series on HBO could be a lot more successful than the other recent series.

Oh god, HBO must never be allowed to touch Fables. They'd add so much pointless sexual crap like they always do, while probably completely butchering the source material. If Fables was going to be adapted, it should be a regular TV thing, not a pay thing like HBO or Netflix where they put cheap tactics to get fews (sex, sex and more sex) over actual story telling. Give it to SyFy or one of the big channels. Heck, give it to TNT. Fables doesn't need all that much CG except for a few characters, so it could definitely work on a regular Cable tv budget.

I'd go with Y: The Last Man or DMZ, Fables is just to close OUAT.

To be fair, Fables is both barely similar to OUAT and far, far superior. Yeah they both have fairytale characters in the real world, but they are just about as different as possibly besides that. There is no reason for that weird Disney abomination to stop a possible (although obviously hypothetical at this point) Fables show.

 

[marillion]

In the original? Probably not. But DC did publish that awful 37-issue Before Watchmen series in 2012, so there's some extra material right there.

Personally, I think the director's cut of Watchmen is pretty much pitch-perfect.

I actually really liked a lot of the Before Watchman series... There were some really good kernels of stories there that could be adapted...

There's also stuff they could do from the Watchmen's origins.. Episodes around different characters that are based on mentions in the original comic.. I mean, look at almost any series based on a book.. Before long they start going off in different directions.. And who's to say there can't be adventures AFTER the climax of the original source material.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

What I am saying is the notion that Watchmen is "no more about nuclear proliferation [/war] than it is about Nixon or Vietnam" is absurd, and that to not grasp that the story is primarily about nuclear war is to "completely miss the point."

I'm sure we would both agree with that, but that doesn't mean that we'd both agree that it's "all about" stopping nuclear war. and that the secondary themes exist only in the service of the theme of stopping nuclear war.

 

[theenglish]

I actually really liked a lot of the Before Watchman series... There were some really good kernels of stories there that could be adapted...

There's also stuff they could do from the Watchmen's origins.. Episodes around different characters that are based on mentions in the original comic.. I mean, look at almost any series based on a book.. Before long they start going off in different directions.. And who's to say there can't be adventures AFTER the climax of the original source material.

The Handmaid's Tale will be going in that direction next season.

 

[The Old Mixer]

I'd say that the central theme is about trying to stop a monster and becoming a greater monster in the process, as underscored by the Black Freighter episodes. The threat of nuclear war is a McGuffin, not the central theme.

 

[TemporalFlux]

If HBO wants to explore super-heroes, they should be looking at Kurt Busiek's Astro City which takes a human, street level approach to the awe and mystery of that kind of world.

I think it was last year that Astro City did a story of a regular person who got a job as a dispatcher for a Justice League type team. She had to listen to all of the calls from people needing help and judge which were something of the level for the super heroes to take on. She began to feel badly for all the people they didn't help and just passed on to other local agencies who weren't interested; so she took it on herself to investigate a call from a little boy with an abusive father. Turned out the father was a henchman for a big villain organization and she stumbled into stopping a big plot the heroes would have otherwise never known about.

There's a lot of rich, human stories in Astro City and worth years of material. It would be a lot better than re-treading Watchmen which we've already seen. The movie didn't leave out enough to justify a revisit.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I'd say that the central theme is about trying to stop a monster and becoming a greater monster in the process, as underscored by the Black Freighter episodes. The threat of nuclear war is a McGuffin, not the central theme.

Nail on the head.

 

[Skipper]

I too would love a Y: The Last Man HBO/Netflix series, provided it employed aggressive color grading to preserve the books' vibrant use of color:

Michael Green to Serve as Showrunner for Y: The Last Man TV Series

 

[theenglish]

Michael Green to Serve as Showrunner for Y: The Last Man TV Series

But is that still in development?

 

[JD]

Might be, the announcement about Green was made in November of last year, and that doesn't seem like that long of a time when comes to this kind of stuff. I had totally forgotten that had been announced.

 

[JD]

CBR has a pretty convincing article about why Watchmen might actually work better as a TV than it did as a movie.

 

[Captain of the USS Averof]

Watchmen might have worked a lot better as a TV series than a movie, if Damon Lindelof wasn't involved in it.

 

[Silvercrest]

Maybe there's still a chance we'll get "Saturday Morning Watchmen".

 

[The Lensman]

Maybe there's still a chance we'll get "Saturday Morning Watchmen".

Or "Watchmen Babies"

 

[Ovation]

Or "Watchmen Babies"

Or Teen Watchmen.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Abbott and Costello Meet Rorschach.