Watchmen

Watchmen TV show presses ahead; HBO releases cryptic teaser

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HBO is pressing ahead with its Watchmen TV show. The premium cable network has gone ahead and ordered a full season of the DC-Comics-inspired series, as well as nailing down a 2019 release date and sharing a tiny teaser to get you thinking.

“Nothing ever ends”, declares the brief video that HBO shared on Twitter, which feels like a cryptic tease of the show’s themes and a statement on the ever-growing pile of peak TV offerings that we’re continually trying to keep up with.

Here is the seconds-long video, which also confirms that the Watchmen TV show will arrive on our screens in 2019:

HBO also shared this logline with IndieWire:

Set in an alternate history where “superheroes” are treated as outlaws, “Watchmen” embraces the nostalgia of the original groundbreaking graphic novel while attempting to break new ground of its own.

Watchmen was created by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons for DC Comics back in 1986. The iconic comic book run was faithfully adapted into a film by Zack Snyder in 2009. And, more recently, DC produced a comic book prequel entitled Before Watchmen and a sequel named Doomsday Clock.

As for the plot of the HBO series, producer Damon Lindelof has offered this intriguing statement:

“This story will be set in the world its creators painstakingly built…but in the tradition of the work that inspired it, this new story must be original. It has to vibrate with the seismic unpredictability of its own tectonic plates. It must ask new questions and explore the world through a fresh lens. Most importantly, it must be contemporary. The Old Testament was specific to the Eighties of Reagan and Thatcher and Gorbachev. Ours needs to resonate with the frequency of Trump and May and Putin and the horse that he rides around on, shirtless. And speaking of Horsemen, The End of the World is off the table…which means the heroes and villains–as if the two are distinguishable–are playing for different stakes entirely […] Some of the characters will be unknown. New faces. New masks to cover them. 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.”

The show has assembled an impressive cast, too, including Regina King, Jeremy Irons, Tim Blake Nelson, Don Johnson, Jacob Ming-Trent, Dylan Schombing, Lily Rose Smith, Adelynn Spoon, Louis Gossett Jr., Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Adelaide Clemens, Andrew Howard, Tom Mison, Frances Fisher and Sara Vickers.

We’ll keep you posted as HBO shares more about the Watchmen TV series, in the build-up to its debut next year.