The 'Watchmen' Showrunner Says He's in a 'Wrestling Match' With Alan Moore
• Damon Lindelof revealed new details about his Watchmen at a TCA event.
• He also discussed the show's relationship with Watchmen writer Alan Moore.
• “It’s an ongoing wrestling match,” he said.
While the latest trailer for HBO's upcoming Watchmen series finally gave us a definitive answer on when the series will debut—this October, if you missed it—showrunner Damon Lindelof revealed even more about the upcoming nine-episode series on Wednesday's Television Critics Association press tour, including his contentious relationship with Alan Moore, the writer of the original Watchmen graphic novel.
“It’s an ongoing wrestling match,” Lindelof said, making clear that Moore has wanted nothing to do with his adaptation. But he's not letting that get to him, channeling Moore's own attitude: "Fuck you, I’m doing it anyway," Lindelof said.
For added context, Lindelof, who has a pair of TV classics under his belt with The Leftovers and Lost, says he was channeling both his own relationship with his father, and Moore's own past attitude towards his own work.
“As someone who’s entire identity is based around a very complicated relationship with my dad, who I constantly need to prove myself to and never will, Alan Moore is now that surrogate,” Lindelof said at the panel. “The wrestling match will continue. I do feel like the spirit of Alan Moore is a punk rock spirit, a rebellious spirit, and that if you would tell Alan Moore, a teenage Moore in ’85 or ’86, ‘You’re not allowed to do this because Superman’s creator or Swamp Thing’s creator doesn’t want you to do it,’ he would say, ‘Fuck you, I’m doing it anyway.’ So I’m channeling the spirit of Alan Moore to tell Alan Moore, ‘Fuck you, I’m doing it anyway.'”
Moore is known to dislike adaptations of his own work, particularly his experience with Zack Snyder's 2009 Watchmen movie. "At that point, I decided I didn't want anybody at DC to ever contact me again," he told The Guardian in an interview after describing ways that he said the studio went behind his back, and exerted inappropriate pressure on him. "That was what made me curse this wretched film and everything connected with it."
Lindelof also made clear that what happened in Moore's comic is canon ( “Everything that happened in those 12 issues could not be messed with. We were married to it. There is no rebooting it.”) but he seems to be trying to disregard the 2009 film. He said that casting actors who appeared in that film, like Malin Akerman (Silk Spectre) or Patrick Wilson (Nite Owle), in the same roles would simply be too confusing for audiences.
“Again, I don’t want to be cutesy about it. Our Watchmen, with two notable exceptions (Ozymandias, now played by Jeremy Irons, and Dr. Manhattan, who was spotted in the latest trailer) is trying to introduce new characters as opposed to dwelling on characters from the classic," he said. "But never say never.”
His Watchmen is also set 30 years after the events of the graphic novel (and Snyder's film), so the ages of those actors wouldn't be accurate anyway.
For now, we continue waiting with baited breath for more Watchmen details—it sounds like this could very well be the most exciting series of the fall.
Watch Zack Snyder's Watchmen Here Watch The Leftovers Here Watch Lost Here
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