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Work begins on HBO TV series of Watchmen

Who watches the Watchmen? Well, lots of people, if HBO plays its cards right.

Work on the planned TV serialisation of the revered comic book by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons appears to have begun, according to Damon Lindelof.

The screenwriter dropped a teaser on his Instagram page, suggesting that the project is full steam ahead.

The pic (perhaps a prop from Zack Snyder’s 2009 big screen adaptation) is of a commemorative statue, with the inscription ‘In Gratitude’.

Below it, Lindelof has captioned: “Day One.”

Day One.

A post shared by Damon (@damonlindelof) on Sep 19, 2017 at 10:49am PDT

There are concerns about all this, of course.

One follower asked that he ‘just respect the source material’, while another pleaded ‘please don’t f**k this up’.

Lovers of the book will recognise it as being the statue Hollis Mason, aka the Nite Owl, was given on his retirement from the masked vigilante game in 1962.

Lindelof is best known for being the co-creator and showrunner of ‘Lost’, as well as writing the scripts for ‘Prometheus’, ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ and ‘Tomorrowland’.

He also co-created and wrote ‘The Leftovers’ for HBO, which wound up over the summer after three seasons.

Snider adapted ‘Watchmen’ in 2009, with a cast including Jackie Earl Haley, Patrick Wilson, Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup and Jeffrey Dean Morgan as the team of flawed vigilantes in a dystopian alternate view of history in which America won the Vietnam war and a cold war with Russia is raging.

But it was made much to the chagrin of writer Alan Moore, who has always hated the making of his work into movies, so it’s unlikely he’ll be giving this latest project his blessing.

“I find film in its modern form to be quite bullying,” he told the LA Times in 2008, prior to ‘Watchmen’s release.

“It spoon-feeds us, which has the effect of watering down our collective cultural imagination. It is as if we are freshly hatched birds looking up with our mouths open waiting for Hollywood to feed us more regurgitated worms. The ‘Watchmen’ film sounds like more regurgitated worms. I for one am sick of worms. Can’t we get something else? Perhaps some takeout? Even Chinese worms would be a nice change.

“I can tell you that I will also be spitting venom all over it for months to come.”

Moore, who also wrote ‘V For Vendetta’, ‘From Hell’ and ‘The Killing Joke’, retired from the world of comic books last year.

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