Damon Lindelof Talks ‘Watchmen’ & Why “What We Think About Superheroes Is Wrong”

Credit to Damon Lindelof, he’s not afraid to take a risk. Everyone still argues about the merits (or lack thereof) when it comes to “Lost,” and the writer put his pen to the very contentious “Prometheus.” Still, that didn’t stop him from tackling “The Leftovers,” which finished its three season run this year in such spectacular fashion, and is already going down as one of the all time, small screen greats. Now, he’s sticking around HBO to work on the TV series adaptation of “Watchmen,” with the network ordering  a pilot episode and backup scripts.

Of course, the source material was already made into a frame-by-frame recreation by Zack Snyder, an adaptation that paid great fidelity to the graphic novel, but still didn’t quite work. But Lindelof thinks the themes are still very relevant.

“ ‘Watchmen’ — it was dangerous,” he said at Vulture Festival L.A. . “And you can’t be dangerous for dangerous’s sake, but the reason that I’m doing this is these are dangerous times, and we need dangerous shows.”

In fact, Lindelof believes that Alan Moore‘s work is prime for this moment, when superheroes are leaping off the screen every other month to save the world. “Watchmen” will consider the question of whether or not these figures should be given such immense power.

“What we think about superheroes is wrong,” Lindelof explained. “I love the Marvel movies and we saw ‘Justice League‘ this morning and I’m all for Wonder Woman and Batman and I grew up on these characters, but we should not trust people who put on masks and say that they are looking out for us. If you hide your face, you are up to no good.”

The idea of the person behind the mask reckoning with their actions and responsibilities is rich with potential, and it’ll be interesting to see what grows out of this. No word yet on when “Watchmen” might debut, but before a series is ordered, it’ll have to make it past the pilot stage.