HBO Boss Addresses Possibility of Watchmen Return

Watchmen, HBO’s sequel to the acclaimed comic book series by Dave Gibbons and Alan Moore, was a fan- and critical favorite back in 2019. According to HBO chief Casey Bloys, though, there are still no plans for moving ahead with any other explorations of that world, unless executive producer Damon Lindelof comes to them with an idea. Lindelof, best known for projects like Lost, was the one who developed Watchmen for television, and is credited as the series’ “creator,” and representatives for Warner Bros. and HBO have routinely said that unless there is a compelling creative vision — and almost certainly one straight from Lindelof — more Watchmen is a non-starter.

The series was not an adaptation of Watchmen, or even of Doomsday Clock, the canonical Watchmen sequel in the comics from Geoff Johns and Gary Frank. Instead, it picks up decades after the Moore/Gibbons series, introducing new characters while checking back in with some of the remaining survivors from the original comic.

“Watchmen was so much his creation,” Bloys told Variety. “If he doesn’t think there’s a story that he wants to put his heart and soul into, it’s hard for me to think that it would be worth doing. It was a very special limited series for us. I would put it in the pantheon of HBO greats. If Damon ever wants to revisit it, he knows that it’s an open door. But it is hard for me to imagine doing one without him.”

Watchmen is not only one of the most acclaimed superhero comics of all time, but also was responsible for the deterioration of Moore’s relationship with DC. Moore has said that he feels DC misled him into a bad deal for Watchmen, and in later years has rejected any royalties or connection with the book, asking that DC give his share to Gibbons. Moore also asked his name be taken off the Watchmen TV show.  The controversy has been the subject of plenty of jokes in the geek space, including The Simpsons positing a Watchmen Babies spinoff in the vein of Muppet Babies. More recently, The Secret Life of Pets writer Brian Lynch responded to the Super-Pets movie by taking to social media to propose a Watchmen Pets movie.

“Who doesn’t want to see Nite Owl as a little cockatiel dressed as an owl, or a blue cat living on the moon, or a dalmatian with spots that move around all the time?” Lynch joked. “What if this was the idea that made Alan Moore say ‘yeah, Watchmen should continue, go for it, have fun’?”