Damon Lindelof Denies HBO ‘Watchmen’ Involvement (Sort Of)

HBO has been trying to get some form of Watchmen off the ground for years; most recently setting LOST and Leftovers boss Damon Lindelof on the concept. Lindelof hasn’t formally confirmed his involvement, now stating “I haven’t had any meetings with HBO,” though his reverence for the property tells a different story.

It was earlier in June that Lindelof was reported in early talks to shepherd a new Watchmen project, absent 2009 film director Zack Snyder. It wasn’t clear if HBO’s Watchmen project would adapt the 1986 comic as a miniseries, draw from 2012 DC printing Before Watchmen or tell its own story, though Lindelof otherwise gave a vague answer on the subject to TVLine:

I went on a vacation with my family … but then I started really enjoying being out of touch with the world, and when I turned my phone back on five days later, there were like 300 emails congratulating me on ‘Watchmen.’ And all I can say at this time is … as of right now, I haven’t had any meetings with HBO about ‘Watchmen.’

That quote could be considered vague enough on its own (“meetings” is pretty flexible), though Lindelof went on to declare his love for the franchise in a manner indicative of someone hoping to do it justice:

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.

So I take it very seriously, there’s a lot of responsibility. All I can say is I’m thinking about ‘Watchmen’ a lot right now … nothing official.

For those unfamiliar with Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ original 1986 work, Watchmen explored a world in which the emergence of costumed heroes (and one super-powered being) radically altered history, while the murder of a retired hero reunites said heroes to unravel a doomsday plot. Snyder’s 2009 film finished decades of attempts to adapt the material, and starred Malin Akerman, Patrick Wilson, Matthew Goode, Billy Crudup, Jackie Earle Haley, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

It’s likely HBO will confirm or deny Lindelof’s involvement with the upcoming TCA press tour, but does his reverence for the material inspire confidence in any potential adaptation?