As potential casting details emerge about HBO’s Watchmen, it looks like the upcoming TV series will be drastically different from its source material.
Adapting Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ award-winning work, LOST‘s Damon Lindelof will be handling production. Zack Snyder’s 2009 movie cut plenty from the twelve-issue graphic novel, but it sounds like the TV series will be diverging even further.
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A casting breakdown provided by ThatHashTagShow teases a very different tact — for The Leftovers‘ Nicole Kassell’s pilot episode at least. A full list can be found below, so let the speculation begin:
Angela Abraham: African-American female cop. Independent and intelligent, she’s also a realist. She’s married to Cal, with whom she has a daughter and is fiercely protective of them both.
Cal Abraham: African-American male who is the stay-at-home husband of Angela. While he seems at home as the king of his castle and being a loving husband and father, it’s clear his past has a different story to tell.
Looking Glass: A good looking cop, the native Oklahoman isn’t simple as his rural accent makes him appear to be. A top interrogator and behavioral scientist, he may also be a bit of a sociopath.
Panda: An ethnic desk cop, he’s cynical and tough and puts his job first. Not a friend to many, he uses comedy to keep people at bay.
Red Scare: Mafioso, track suit wearing cop. His Russian accent lends to his abrasiveness.
Pirate Jenny: An androgynous and lustful bisexual cop, Jenny is an anarchist at heart.
Jane Crawford: The wife of the police chief, Judd, Jane is a veterinarian who’s sharper than her guarded persona lets on.
Old Man: A former cop who is still an imposing figure despite his age.
It is a struggle to pinpoint anyone familiar from Watchmen, with no sign of The Comedian, Rorschach or Night Owl yet. The first casting call hints to a tale following the Oklahoma cops who had a minor role in the graphic novel. The Oklahoma Police were seen as antagonists who had it in for vigilante heroes and led to an incident known as the Police Strike of 1977.
The other option is that the character descriptions are just to throw everyone off the scent and these could be the actual breakdowns of the Watchmen and Minutemen. Given that Lindelof is a self-professed fan of Watchmen, audiences are expecting all the big players to appear at some point.
Lindelof had already promised that Watchmen won’t be a simple carbon copy of Moore and Gibbons’ graphic novel, but if the casting call is to be believed, the series could be a completely different beast.
Filming is due to start on Watchmen in early may, so there isn’t long to wait until details become a little clearer. Either way, there will be plenty watching the Watchmen when they make their way to HBO.