For the longest time, it looked as though we’d never see Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ seminal graphic novel Watchmen brought into live-action in any form. The project remained stuck in development hell for decades with Terry Gilliam, Paul Greengrass and Darren Aronofsky all trying and failing to bring it to life before Zack Snyder finally got it over the finishing line.
Fans praised his R-rated epic for its faithfulness to the source material, while many critics blasted it for exactly the same thing, deeming it too slavish and often impenetrable to those unfamiliar with the comic book. Watchmen wound up disappointing at the box office as well, after earning just over $185 million on a $130 million budget, although it raked in plenty of additional revenue thanks to both the Director’s and Ultimate Cuts.
A decade later, Damon Lindelof refitted the concept as a marquee HBO series, which took place in a different pocket of the universe. This time, reviews were overwhelmingly enthusiastic, and the episodic Watchmen would go on to win eleven Emmys from a mammoth 26 nominations. Despite initially being announced as an ongoing series, however, any plans for a second season were dropped when Lindelof stepped away as showrunner after admitting that he’d told the story he wanted to tell.
In a new interview, HBO chief Casey Bloys has confirmed once more that there are currently no plans for either a season 2 or any spinoffs, despite the huge amount of high profile content currently in the works for HBO Max.
“No change there. Never say never. But that adaptation was so from his brain it’s hard to imagine somebody else doing it. But there are no active conversations, or courting anybody, or putting it out there in the way that we’re doing, for example, with Game of Thrones.”
Without Lindelof at the helm, the stars of Watchmen had already cast doubt on their returns anyway, and it appears as though HBO are more than happy to leave it as a one and done effort.