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'Watchmen' TV Series From Damon Lindelof on HBO {SPOILERS FROM PAGE 8}


AncalagonTheBlack

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Partly because of this thread and because I stumbled across it on Netflix I watched the Watchmen film for the first time since I saw it on its initial release. I think the best choices for remakes are those where the remake could improve on something in the original, and there is some potential here for a TV series to do things better than in the film, but there's also definitely potential for it being a worse adaptation. It gets quite a lot of things right, but botches some other aspects of the story. There are scenes that are done really well and it manages to cover most of the key points from what is a very intricate story (and in some ways I prefer the ending), but some of the scenes are a bit clunky and its portrayal of the characters is a bit variable. I think Jackie Early Haley and Jeffrey Dean Morgan are great as Rorschach and the Comedian, but I felt some of the other actors struggled a bit at times and it's maybe one area where a TV series could improve.

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7 hours ago, Werthead said:

Wild Cards is with SyFy though, so the options were not available. I am surprised that GRRM agreed to re-license the rights to SyFy after they'd sat on them for four or five years and not done anything with them. I get that SyFy made a cool new pitch as a TV show rather than a movie and they agreed to hire Melinda Snodgrass, so that all sounded good, but another two years (IIRC) down the line here we are with nothing to show for it. He really should have pushed the project at HBO, as you'd imagine a uniquely HBO take on superheroes would be interesting for them (as we now see).

The only other explanation is that HBO decided to do Watchmen years ago and made that clear to GRRM so he'd be able to shop Wild Cards elsewhere.

There's no way HBO was going to do a non-DC comics show, given the corporate family.

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16 minutes ago, Ran said:

There's no way HBO was going to do a non-DC comics show, given the corporate family.

That's not true. They've done non DC superhero properties. The Spawn animated show was HBO.

 

/Now they certainly wouldn't have any connection with a Marvel production, I'm sure, but that's a different ball of wax.

//On top of that, do you really consider Wildcards to be a comic property? I know there was a very short-lived comic, but it is hardly the format that the series is known for.

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Substitute "superheroes" for "comics".

That was from before the rise of the MCU and DC pushing to rival it, though, and there's way more focus at Time Warner to use their supers IP to challenge -- or at least replicate -- the success of Marvel/Disney.

Can almost guarantee that HBO came to Lindelof, or at least made him aware that he could work with Watchmen.

 

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3 hours ago, Ran said:

There's no way HBO was going to do a non-DC comics show, given the corporate family.

That would be similar logic to them not doing GOT because they had Harry Potter/neverending story/ladyhawke? Like Manhole says, Wildcards is a book property not a comic so adapting Wildcards isn't going to take away sales from their comic company. Adapting a Marvel property would be odd in much the same way as Disney making a DC comics show.

Given how DC tv shows are scattered around with other networks HBO probably ideally want a property with no strings attached that is preferably DC. That doesn't leave them with much so I can see why Watchmen was chosen. Most of the vertigo properties are trickier as the creators have quite a bit of ownership.

Regarding Wert's comments his final scenario seems the most plausible in Watchmen being in development before they knew how hot a property GOT was. Surely GRRM would much rather wait and have HBO do a successful version (don't want to get sidetracked on debate about quality :P ) than leave it with Syfy who, to be fair, has a terrible track record - especially with shows lasting beyond 3 seasons (I'm still holding my breath for the long term survival of the great "Expanse" show in a way I wouldn't if it was a genuine netflix or HBO show).

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If that was a big concern, I wonder why HBO passed on Preacher (a DC property) and let it slip to AMC. You'd have assumed the corporate imperative would have been to keep it in the family.

HBO generally only have one show in one genre on at any one time, though, so if they've been developing Watchmen for years it makes sense they wouldn't consider any other superhero property. The only problem with that is that Wild Cards is a franchise with three decades of stories all carefully overseen by the two co-creators (Martin and Snodgrass), so HBO could milk it for years. Even if you include Before Watchmen, there isn't all that much content to mine out of the comic.

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red snow,

Think you're right about Vertigo properties having a tough time, at least with HBO. 

Werthead,

Being a creator-owned Vertigo property probably makes it more difficult issue for HBO (in fact, I believe HBO was also developing SANDMAN for a good while and that collapsed as well). Watchmen has always been published under the DC imprint, predating Vertigo as it did, and though the rights are substantially more complicated than the standard comics, that whole "stay in print, our forever" thing seems to mitigate that sufficiently.

 

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I'm pretty sure most of the Vertigo properties are more creator-owned so said creators could probably shop it around. Neil Gaiman is known to have an amazing amount of control over Sandman even though it was initially part of the DC universe. So it does seem again that "Watchmen" maybe was the best choice as it's very well established how little control Alan Moore has over it.

It does make more sense when we look at it in terms of HBO being able to adapt a property that their parent company owns and yet isn't connected to the DC shows/films.

Wildcards would have been a better option if they'd wanted to put a bit more effort in.

It's a shame Wildcards landed with Syfy. It would have made a good AMC property or something for Amazon to play with.

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19 hours ago, Martini Sigil said:

Speaking of Alan Moore properties... wasn;t there also talk of a league of Extraordinary Gentlemen TV series?... After that abortion of a movie, I was looking forward to it... or maybe i was just reading gossip 

I think I remember reading that as well, although it might have been a while ago. I think it would make more sense in terms of an adaptation, given that it's been longer since the film and there's a lot more room for improvement.

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On 25/09/2017 at 0:58 AM, Martini Sigil said:

Speaking of Alan Moore properties... wasn;t there also talk of a league of Extraordinary Gentlemen TV series?... After that abortion of a movie, I was looking forward to it... or maybe i was just reading gossip 

Penny Dreadful was kind of the same thing.

That property should be one that Moore had proper control over so maybe after seeing that film he made sure it was never adapted again? To be honest I think it was after that he point blankly refused to see or read scripts of any adaptations. As far as he knows he could love some of them.

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On 9/23/2017 at 2:46 PM, Let's Get Kraken said:

But was Moore doing that to cash in on the name recognition of those characters, or because he had a genuine story to tell that he believed would make progress in art?

There wasn't much to cash in on, was there? Those Charlton characters were fairly short-lived.

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On 9/24/2017 at 8:31 PM, Triskan said:

Pardon my ignorance, but what would the format be if they go all the way and do a series here?  Would it be a different adaptation of the same story in the graphic novel or would it take that world and build on it?

This is my main question.  Generally, I'll place more trust in Lindelof running a TV show than Snyder running, well, much of anything, but it seems to me it's either going to be essentially a miniseries OR - much more likely - Lindelof is going to build on the world and in the process take very significant liberties.

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21 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

This is my main question.  Generally, I'll place more trust in Lindelof running a TV show than Snyder running, well, much of anything, but it seems to me it's either going to be essentially a miniseries OR - much more likely - Lindelof is going to build on the world and in the process take very significant liberties.

Yeah, Snyder was the worst possible choice to do a Watchman adaptation because he is completely incapable of any kind of nuance.  He didn't do an awful job, all things considered, but I thought his over-the-top visual style was just a really bad fit for the property.  All the same reasons he was a perfect fit for 300 were why he should have stayed away from Watchmen.  

I thought someone like David Fincher would have been a much better choice.

No real issues with Lindelof trying his hand at it.  He's done some pretty great character-focused television work.

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8 hours ago, red snow said:

Penny Dreadful was kind of the same thing.

That property should be one that Moore had proper control over so maybe after seeing that film he made sure it was never adapted again? To be honest I think it was after that he point blankly refused to see or read scripts of any adaptations. As far as he knows he could love some of them.

I'm confused by the Penny Dreadful reference.  Other than the fact it obviously integrated a bunch of 19th century legends, I was under the impression that was all Logan.  As for Moore, he certainly has a right to be bitter but seems to me he's managed to market his disapproval at this point which is...odd.  All I can think when I see him is I hope I'm dead before I become something like that.  I think he'd appreciate that sentiment.

23 minutes ago, briantw said:

I thought someone like David Fincher would have been a much better choice.

Agreed, Fincher would have been a much more inspired choice.  Could be a mea culpa after Alien 3.

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10 hours ago, dmc515 said:

I'm confused by the Penny Dreadful reference. 

I just meant there maybe wasn't much point in a LOG TV series when Penny Dreadful had a similar concept.

I guess with the number of superhero shows and shows featuring spaceships it's maybe ok to have two Victorian age shows featuring monster characters from that era. I guess it helps Penny Dreadful is finished but it may have caused hesitation while it was on air.

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12 hours ago, briantw said:

Yeah, Snyder was the worst possible choice to do a Watchman adaptation because he is completely incapable of any kind of nuance.

To be fair to Snyder, I can think of much worse choices - just imagine what Michael Bay's Watchmen would have been like.

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