‘Watchmen’ Creator Calls TV Show ‘Embarrassing’

Within the TV world, Watchmen was considered an improbable success. It managed to tell a compelling and timely sequel story set in the same fictional universe as the classic DC comic co-created by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. The show garnered solid ratings, very positive reviews, and earned 11 Emmy Awards.

But not everyone was a fan. Watchmen writer Alan Moore has long detested the way the comics he created for DC (which are all owned by Warner Bros.) have been turned into films and television shows without his approval or input. And despite all the acclaim for the Watchmen TV show, Moore felt no different about it. He told GQ that the series showrunner (Damon Lindelof) contacted him in an effort to win his approval. To put it mildly, that move backfired.

Describing the showrunner’s letter as “a lot of, what seemed to me to be, neurotic rambling,” Moore fired back a “very abrupt and probably hostile reply” instructing the production to leave him alone from that point on.

He added:

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.’

Again, Lindelof is in good company here; Moore has pretty much hated (and in most cases never even seen) all the adaptations of his work, including Zack Snyder’s Watchmen and the V For Vendetta movie. If you’re going to make something out of one of Moore’s incredible graphic novels, this is part of the deal; he’s going to dislike it (and, by extension, you) on basic principle. Regardless, the Watchmen TV series, which was pretty darn good, is still available on HBO Max.