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Watchmencreator Alan Moore revealed his terse response to the showrunner of the 2019 HBO series based on his comics when that person reached out via a letter ahead of production. Moore did not name the showrunner, butLostco-creatorDamon Lindelofserved in the role.
Speaking toGQin an interview published on Tuesday, Moore, 68, shared that a few years back, he received"a frank letter" from the showrunnerof the HBO series, who Moore claimed stated he was “one of the bastards currently destroyingWatchmen.” Moore was not amused, he said.
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Noting that the line “wasn’t the best opener,” he explained the content of the message — which appeared to him as “neurotic rambling” — included a question that read, “Can you at least tell us how to pronounce ‘Ozymandias?'” That was a reference to a character in his novel.
“I got back with a very abrupt and probably hostile reply, telling him that I’d thought that Warner Bros. were aware that they, nor any of their employees, shouldn’t contact me again for any reason,” he toldGQ. “I explained that I had disowned the work in question, and partly that was because the film industry and the comics industry seemed to have created things that had nothing to do with my work, but which would be associated with it in the public mind.”
“I said, ‘Look, this is embarrassing to me. I don’t want anything to do with you or your show. Please don’t bother me again,'” Moore continued.
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After learning that theshow scored 11 winsat the 2020Primetime Emmy Awards, Moore started to contemplate the audience’s perception ofWatchmen.
“I thought, ‘Oh, god, perhaps a large part of the public, this is what they thinkWatchmenwas?’ They think that it was a dark, gritty, dystopian superhero franchise that was something to do with white supremacism. Did they not understandWatchmen?” he said.
“Watchmenwas nearly 40 years ago and was relatively simple in comparison with a lot of my later work,” he explained. “What are the chances that they broadly understood anything since? This tends to make me feel less than fond of those works. They mean a bit less in my heart.”
From executive producer Lindelof, the HBO series premiered in October 2019 and starredRegina King,Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Jeremy Irons,Louis Gossett Jr.,Jean Smart,Hong Chau, andDon Johnson.
In addition to the Emmy trophies, the show also won a Peabody Award for Entertainment, with King, 51, at the time speaking on the forgotten true history of theTulsa Race Massacre, which is at the heart of the show’s premise.
Despite the acclaim reception, Lindelof, 49, toldEntertainment Weeklyin December 2019, there areno plans for aWatchmenseason 2, though he wouldn’t be opposed to more stories set in an alternate reality, provided they find another worthy story.
“There’s always going to be spacefor moreWatchmen. I feel like this world is so expansive — hopefully more expansive now than it was before,” he said at the time. “You could call something Watchmen and not even feature any of the characters who were in the original or in this season as long as they all occupy the same world.”
source: people.com
