HBO’s WATCHMEN Series Just Cast Too Many People to Name in This Headline

Hot on the heels of Damon Lindelof's open letter to Watchmen fans (which promises HBO's forthcoming adaptation will be a modernized "remix" of the classic Alan Moore comic series), Variety just dropped a massive casting announcement in our laps. Let's see what they have to say:

"Regina King, Don Johnson, Tim Blake Nelson, Louis Gossett Jr., Adelaide Clemens, and Andrew Howard will all appear in [Watchmen], with King in the lead role."

Wow, that's a murderer's row of talent! Who will they be playing?

"The exact details of their characters are being kept under wraps."

OK, so we don't know anything about who these people will be playing, but we do know Regina King's playing the lead. That's interesting! One might assume this to mean that a bit of gender-swapping is going to take place, but not necessarily: as Lindelof mentioned in yesterday's open letter, HBO's Watchmen won't be straight adaptation, and will feature "some" new characters. Given the heavy implication that this Watchmen will take place in the present day, our best guess here is that some of the original Watchmen lineup may appear as aged versions of their 1985 counterparts, with new heroes (and villains!) filling out the rest of the cast...though that also wouldn't wash with the implication that HBO's Watchmen won't be a sequel to the comic series.

Y'know, we're not entirely sure what to make of this, but we are intrigued. Lindelof's letter received a not-entirely-unexpected mixed response from fans, some of whom weren't thrilled to hear that Moore's iconic source material would be getting futzed with, but we remain unopposed: we've already seen the more-or-less "straight up" adaptation of Watchmen, and whatever Lindelof's up to seems like it could be very interesting (if nothing else, it won't be predictable, and Lindelof's promise to use the series to speak to today's political climate is definitely something we're curious to learn more about).

Also: Don Johnson. Will wonders never cease.

Anyway, this is all we know for the time being, but stay tuned for further updates as they roll in (oh, and by the way, if you happen to know anything about this series and would like to drop us a line about it, feel free to reach out via email; we're dying of curiosity over here).