Last week it was made official: HBO is bringing the iconic Watchmen comic book series to life on the small screen, giving the project a series order. It’s exciting news for fans who have long wanted a Watchmen series, but it will also prove Zack Snyder wrong.
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Back in 2009, Snyder directed the big screen adaptation of Watchmen after a live-action film adaptation had spent decades in development hell. Even with the movie finally coming to fruition, many fans still thought that the complex comic story would have been better served as an HBO mini-series. Snyder didn’t agree and made that clear in a 2009 question and answer video freshly surfaced on Reddit.
Reddit user “BeenTryin” posted a video of Snyder explaining why he felt Watchmen wouldn’t work as a mini-series and that his movie was the better option. His rationale? Special effects and cost, especially for Dr. Manhattan.
retrospective: Zack Snyder’s argument back in 2009 on why Watchmen shouldn’t be an HBO mini-series shows the progress of TV entertainment. Do want a DCEU tv show? from r/DC_Cinematic
“This is a question that has been brought up a lot about ‘oh, it should be an HBO miniseries’ or whatever which I think is cool, but you know it’s like in order…there’s no version of this movie where, no HBO miniseries version of Manhattan like that, can’t do it, I mean it’s just like impractical,” Snyder said. “They’d never spend…each shot of him would be like your budget for an episode of the show.”
While it would be easy to dismiss Snyder’s comments as ego — and to be fair, Snyder’s visuals for Watchmen were one of the elements of the film that received nearly universal praise — it’s important to remember that in 2009, HBO was still two years away from Game of Thrones, the series that changed television in terms of what scope networks are willing to take on. Now, nearly a decade later, large scale, higher budgeted television is the norm which should address the issue of effects and budget Snyder discussed.
That said, it remains to be seen how HBO’s Watchmen will turn out when it debuts sometime in 2019. The Damon Lindelof executive produced series isn’t exactly an adaptation of the Watchmen comics, but instead appears to follow characters who were not established in that series with the comics serving as something of a jumping off point for the television series.
“We have no desire to ‘adapt’ the twelve issues Mr. Moore and Mr. Gibbons created thirty years ago,” Lindelof wrote on social media. “Those issue are sacred ground and they will not be retreat nor recreated nor reproduced nor rebooted.”
“They will, however, be remixed.” Lindelof continued. “Because the bass lines in those familiar tracks are just too good and we’d be fools not to sample them. Those original twelve issues are our Old Testament. When the New Testament came along it did not erase what came before it. Creation. The Garden of Eden. Abraham and Isaac. The Flood. It all happened. And so, it will be with Watchmen. The Comedian died. Dan and Laurie fell in love. Ozymandias saved the world and Dr. Manhattan left it just after blowing Rorschach to pieces in the bitter cold of Antarctica.”
What do you think about Snyder’s comments? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
The new Watchmen TV series is set to debut on HBO sometime in 2019.
