HBO’s Watchmen Can Be Treated as a Sequel

People aren’t sure what to expect from the new Watchmen television series coming out on HBO. Damon Lindelof thinks that you can view the new Watchmen as a “sequel” rather than a reboot. He told Entertainment Weekly a bunch of details about the upcoming series, including how fans of the property can place this new entry into the longer timeline.

The interviewer asks about the views from some of the fanbase that this new HBO show is a reboot. Lindelof was quick to quiet those concerns, and if you’re a fan of the original Watchmen graphic novels, you don’t have a ton to worry about. There will always be people who take issue with anything that expands on this established world. But, it sounds like the creative team has tried to honor those stories in an authentic way.

“Look, [the new series] certainly fits into the “sequel” box, and definitely doesn’t fit into the “reboot” box,” Lindelof began. “We treat the original 12 issues as canon. They all happened. We haven’t done any revisionist history, but we can maneuver in between the cracks and crevices and find new stories there. But for all the reasons you just articulated, we wanted to make sure our first episode felt like the beginning of a new story rather than a continuation of an old story. That’s what I think a sequel is — the continuation of an old story.”

While Watchmen isn’t going to completely adhere to the old version of the story in the way that the majority of Zack Snyder’s movie did, it sounds like there are some definite nods to the comic coming in this series. All of those events occurred in this universe and the present that viewers will step into reflects a timeline where things got changed forever by the climactic moments in the original graphic novel.

Earlier this year, Lindelof came under fire for some comments about Alan Moore’s disapproval of the new show. Many in the fandom considered those comments to be disrespectful of the author when he said that he was channeling Moore’s spirit when taking the job. The writer later clarified that he respects everything that paved the way for this project. Lindelof talked to TV Insider to clear the air after social media started to get in on the debate around the new show before it even started.

“I’m not creating this world; I’m adding to a world already created… all I can do is stay true to the spirit of Watchmen and pray that it all works out. I owe everything to Watchmen, and it’s an honor to officially get the chance to pay off that debt,” Lindelof previously told TV Insider.

Watchmen begins on HBO on October 20th.