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HBO Orders Star-Studded ‘Watchmen’ Pilot to Series

After weeks of exciting casting announcements including Jeremy IronsSleepy Hollow’s Tom Mison, and Aquaman’s  Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, it seemed almost inevitable that a full season of Wathcmen would come to fruition, and now HBO has finally pulled the trigger, officially ordering the comic-inspired pilot to series.

Inspired by Alan Moore’s comic series and developed into an original story by Lost’s Damon Lindelof, the HBO Watchmen series will remix the comics to take place in a more modern setting that will explore current social and political topics using new and familiar characters. According to HBO’s official description, this new iteration “embraces the nostalgia of the original groundbreaking graphic novel while attempting to break new ground of its own.”

HBO Orders Star-Studded ‘Watchmen’ Pilot to Series
DC Comics

It will still be set in an alternate history where “superheroes” are treated as outlaws, but Lindelof warned fans earlier this year that  “some of the characters will be unknown. New faces. New masks to cover them.”

[row]“I’ve been very vocal about my love for those twelve issues that eventually became a graphic novel; that they were completely and totally inspiring for all the storytelling that I did subsequently, and that I owe a debt to it. So, is that piece of material something that’s really interesting to me? Yes, but I do feel like I have to weigh the balance of ‘Should it exist?’ before I decide to take it on, and I’m sort of in that process now. I hold the source material in such high regard; it would literally be the worst feeling in the world to screw it up,” he commented earlier this year.[/row]

HBO Orders Star-Studded ‘Watchmen’ Pilot to Series
DC Comics

In addition to Irons, Mison, and Abdul-Mateen II, the series will also star Regina King, Don Johnson, Tim Blake Nelson, Louis Gossett Jr., Adelaide Clemens, Andrew Howard, Frances Fisher, Jacob Ming-Trent, Sara Vickers, Dylan Schombing, Lily Rose Smith, and Adelynn Spoon. Lindelof will both write and executive produce the series and the pilot will be directed by Nicole Kassell.

Watchmen has already been adapted for the big screen back in 2009. The film was directed by Zack Snyder and starred Jackie Earle Haley, Malin Akerman, Patrick Wilson, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Matthew Goode, and Billy Crudup.

HBO hopes to start production on season 1 as soon as possible!

Source: Deadline