Watchmen Reveals New Look At Jeremy Irons' Character

In the run-up to Watchmen's October debut on HBO, Warner Bros. Television is entering the "all-out blitz" stage of its marketing push, the latest bit of which includes a new look at Jeremy Irons's officially-unnamed character in the series. While HBO has declined to admit as much, fans are mostly guessing that Irons is playing Ozymandias, the villain from the comic book Watchmen. This theory has been pretty pervasive online, and is likely the right idea, since a recent piece of marketing for the show credited Irons as playing "Probably Who You Think." The new image, via Empire Magazine, does little to disabuse the viewer of the idea.

In the image, which you can see below, a decided blonde Irons is riding a horse on the grounds of a giant mansion or castle. Given that Ozymandias turned his genius into massive success in corporate America before turning his eyes on world peace in Watchmen, and then got away with his crimes at the end of the book, it would make sense for that character to be financially well-off.

"Damon Lindeloff has a very specific approach to that material," production designer Mark Worthington told ComicBook.com last month. "I can't tell you what that approach is. What I can say is we are guided more by that than anything else. Damon is a geek, too. He was obsessed with the Watchmen series as a kid. I think we all were. That was a watershed graphic novel for the whole form, as we all know. You're inspired by all of it. There it is. There's the original object and it's what you get excited about, passionate about it. I think Damon's take will be different, is different. It inherently has the DNA of the original Watchmen with a very specific take that he will put on it.

"It's yes and. Yes, of course, we're inspired by the original. Yes, of course, we're respectful of what that meant and what it is as an object. But then Damon has his own way of extending that and taking it to a new place because he's not redoing it, he's creating something that's other than that. I don't know. We'll see how people respond. I think people are going to like it."

The synopsis for the series reads, "Set in an alternate history where 'superheroes' are treated as outlaws, drama series Watchmen, debuting this fall from executive producer Damon Lindelof (HBO's The Leftovers) embraces the nostalgia of the original groundbreaking graphic novel of the same name while attempting to break new ground of its own."

Watchmen will premiere on HBO on October 20.