HBO has confirmed reports that the premium cable network is in early talks with director Zack Snyder about adapting Alan Moore’s seminal graphic novel Watchmen for television.
As previously reported on Thursday, Collider broke the surprising news. The site could only report that Snyder and HBO were having meetings. HBO later sent a statement to Variety, confirming the report.
“Preliminary discussions regarding Watchmen have occurred but we have no additional information and no deals are in place,” HBO said.
Watchmen was published by DC Comics and first adapted as a film by Snyder in 2009 for Warner Bros. HBO, Warner Bros. and DC Comics are all under the Time Warner umbrella.
It’s not clear what this new series will be. It’s possible that it could be based on DC’s prequel comics from 2012, or it could be a re-telling of the main story from the novel.
Snyder tried to cram as much into the film as possible, making a film that ran over 160 minutes (and producing an ultimate cut that runs over 200 minutes for home video). The novel really should have been adapted for television in the first place, but since the movie was made, would there really be a point to telling the same story again?
Also a mystery: just how involved Snyder can be. He is busy as a producer on Warner Bros.’ DC Comics movies and directed the upcoming Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. He’s also supposed to direct a two-part Justice League movie after that.