Watchmen Artist Dave Gibbons New Series Treatment Set to Be Turned Into Film

It has been a strange year for Dave Gibbons and Alan Moore as their creation Watchmen gets ready for a TV adaptation. Now, Variety is reporting that Gibbons has another series ready to become a feature film or series. Treatment is a science fiction book focused around systemic problems of the "modern age." These sorts of adult stories seem like they will only pick up steam as more streaming services pop up in the near future.

Treatment wrestles with corporate greed, inequality, and other ills of our current world through the lens of a perceived future. Three global recessions have made crime supremely commonplace, and entertainment has sprung up to entertain the masses through pitting criminals against a host of people out to kill them. Ex-military members, former law enforcement, and entertainment-types all try to thrill the audience in this reality show format.

Madefire Studios is the outfit that has acquired the rights to the property. The company uses a Motion Book format that tries to inject more kinetic energy when compared to other reading experiences. The feel of these stories as a visual series rather than a print one could add more dimensions to this work and the 30,000 books under the company's imprint.

"Madefire has been at the cutting edge of publishing for years now, using technology to bring comic book stories alive," Gibbons told Variety.

He continued, "I'm thrilled to have Treatment be a part of their expansion into film and television and look forward to continuing our long and happy association."

On the other side, Gibbons believes that things will be different with the new Watchmen series on HBO. He's anticipating a much different response than the previous film generated. There are still fresh stories to tell in that universe and he's out to prove it.

"I do know a little about it," he explained to EW. "I've had conversations with Damon, and I've read the screenplay for the pilot. I don't think it's my place to say too much about it, other than I found Damon's approach to be really refreshing and exciting and unexpected. I don't think it's gonna be what people think it's going to be. It certainly wasn't what I imagined it to be. I think it's extremely fresh. I'm really looking forward to seeing it on the screen."

"I've been resistant to the comic book prequels and sequels, but what Damon's doing is not that at all, it's very far away from that," Gibbons said. "While it's very reverential and true to the source material (by which I mean the Watchmen graphic novel that Alan [Moore] and I did), it's not retreading the same ground, it's not a reinterpretation of it. It approaches it in a completely unexpected way."

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