For quite some time, we’ve known that Damon Lindelof—executive producer of series such as ABC’s Lost and HBO’s The Leftovers—was on board to EP a show based on writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbon’s seminal classic comic miniseries Watchmen. However, straight from Lindelof himself, we also knew that this wouldn’t be a by-the-book adaptation, but rather a new yarn that’s inspired by the original tale, while being set in that story’s world. As you can see from the first teaser trailer for Watchmen just released today, that’s exactly what we’re getting.
Set in the present day, the footage teases several callbacks to the comic book source material: the classic Rorschach mask—which appears to have been co-opted by copycats; the ticking clock motif, both a nod to the Doomsday Clock referenced in the comic and Doctor Manhattan’s father’s profession of watchmaker; the in-story comic Tales of the Black Freighter; and actor Jeremy Irons as an aged Ozymandias. However, we also see a bit of the new, including actress Regina King in a superhero garb of her own. As actor Don Johnson’s cowboy hatted character says in the trailer, it looks like a “reckoning” is about to come to a head, with vigilantes coming out of “hibernation” to stave it off. Between the subject matter, Lindelof, and the stacked cast—which also includes Tim Blake Johnson and Jean Smart—we’re more than happy to give this a shot.
Watchmen is set to premiere this fall on HBO.