Watchmen director and DC movie mastermind Zack Snyder is in early talks to adapt Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ landmark graphic novel as a TV show for HBO. The network confirmed the discussions to Variety earlier today, but cautioned that, while “Preliminary discussions regarding Watchmen have occurred,” the network has “No additional information and no deals are in place,” coded language that presumably means, “Please don’t start yelling at us yet, Alan Moore-loving comic book nerds.”
Plot details about the project are being kept as quiet as a full-grown man hiding in a supervillain’s refrigerator, with neither Snyder nor HBO (or Warner Bros., which owns the rights to the book through DC) hinting whether it would adapt the recent Before Watchmen expansion project, or cover the same narrative ground as the 2009 film. (The latter would mean Snyder was remaking a movie that was already a superfluous adaptation of a standalone work, a level of recursion that might actually rival the original graphic novel in its level of inward-facing symmetry.)
If it goes forward, Watchmen would be Snyder’s first toe-dip into the world of TV production. (The fact that his DC cinematic work completely ignores Warner Bros.’ own much-watched superhero efforts like The Flash and Arrow is one of the abiding paradoxes of the current spandex-clad gold rush.) It’s not surprising, though, that Snyder would approach HBO for the job, given that the premium cable destination is one of the only networks that could happily contain all of Watchmen’s violence, sexual assaults, and glowing blue dongs.
Meanwhile, somewhere in England, an irate Alan Moore angrily refuses to comb his beard, casts a spell, and then goes back to his erotic, ornately illustrated Alice In Wonderland fan-fic. Dave Gibbons takes a nap.