![Damon Lindelof Watchmen](https://cdn.statically.io/img/deadline.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/damon-lindelof-watchmen.jpg?w=630&h=383&crop=1)
Damon Lindelof knows that a lot is riding on his upcoming HBO adaptation of the Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons iconic limited comic series Watchmen. Actually, in a five-page open letter he posted on Instagram to the diehard fans of the comic, he admits that they do not want to adapt the series — but they will “remix” it.
“We have no desire to ‘adapt’ the twelve issues Mr. Moore and Mr. Gibbons created thirty years ago,” Lindelof said. “Those issues are sacred ground and they will not be retread nor recreated nor reproduced nor rebooted.
He continued, “They will, however, be remixed. Because the bass lines in those familiar tracks are just too good and we’d be fools not to sample them. Those original twelve issues are our Old Testament. When the New Testament came along it did not erase what came before it. Creation. The Garden of Eden. Abraham and Isaac. The Flood. It all happened. And so it will be with ‘Watchmen.’ The Comedian died. Dan and Laurie fell in love. Ozymandias saved the world and Dr. Manhattan left it just after blowing Rorschach to pieces in the bitter cold of Antarctica.”
Lindelof goes on to say that the series will not be a sequel and will be an original, new story that will “vibrate with the seismic unpredictability of its own tectonic plates” and how it will ask new questions and will, most importantly, be contemporary.
He admits that there will be new characters, new faces and new masks for those faces. “We also intend to revisit the past century of Costumed Adventuring through a surprising yet familiar set of eyes…and it is here we will be taking our greatest risks,” he notes.
With his dissertation, Lindelof shows that he isn’t playing around with this iteration of Watchmen and he wants to make sure all the fans are aware. I’m sure there will be some sour fans because you can’t please everyone especially when it comes to fanboys and fangirls.
A dark satirical and dystopian take on the superhero genre, Watchmen is set in an alternate history in the year 1985 at the height of the Cold War between the U.S. and Soviet Union. It revolves around a group of mostly retired American superheroes who investigate the murder of one of their own and in the process uncover a conspiracy that could change the course of history as we know it.
Read the entire letter below.