HBO's Watchmen was released in 2019 to critical acclaim. The series, created by Damon Lindelof and starring Regina King, presented a different take on Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' graphic novel. Watchmen took place decades after the comics, and focused on a world still affected by Ozymandias' disastrous squid attack.
Watchmen co-creator Alan Moore is notable for his aversion to his comics being adapted for film and television, the most notable of which include The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, V for Vendetta, and the 2009 Watchmen film. Now, during an interview with GQ (one of the few interviews he's given in years), Moore has revealed the tough words he had for Damon Lindelof after the showrunner reached out to him about making HBO's Watchmen.
Though Moore didn't identify Lindelof by name, he referred to him as "the showrunner of the Watchmen television adaptation." According to the writer, he was not impressed with the letter he received from Lindelof:
"There was an incident—probably a concluding incident, for me. I received a bulky parcel, [...] It turned out to contain a powder blue barbecue apron with a hydrogen symbol on the front. And a frank letter from the showrunner of the 'Watchmen' television adaptation, which I hadn't heard was a thing at that point. But the letter, I think it opened with, 'Dear Mr. Moore, I am one of the bastards currently destroying 'Watchmen.'' That wasn't the best opener. It went on through a lot of, what seemed to me to be, neurotic rambling. 'Can you at least tell us how to pronounce "Ozymandias"?'"
Moore then recounted replying to Lindelof, telling him that he did not want to be contacted by Warner Bros. or its employees:
"I got back with a very abrupt and probably hostile reply telling him that I'd thought that Warner Brothers were aware that they, nor any of their employees, shouldn't contact me again for any reason. 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.'"
Moore also discussed seeing Watchmen had won an award (seemingly referring to the Emmy it won for Outstanding Limited Series). According to the writer, the win made him feel that audiences had misunderstood his work:
"When I saw the television industry awards that the 'Watchmen' television show had apparently won, I thought, 'Oh, God, perhaps a large part of the public, this is what they think 'Watchmen' was?' They think that it was a dark, gritty, dystopian superhero franchise that was something to do with white supremacism. Did they not understand 'Watchmen'?' 'Watchmen' was nearly 40 years ago and was relatively simple in comparison with a lot of my later work. What are the chances that they broadly understood anything since? This tends to make me feel less than fond of those works. They mean a bit less in my heart."
Also during the interview, Moore used Rorschach as an example of the misinterpretation of his writing. According to him, the brooding vigilante was always meant to be a parody. However, some readers took him for a righteous hero. Such perception carried over into Zack Snyder's Watchmen, and though the character (played by Jackie Earle Haley) was shown to be morally ambiguous, he was overall depicted as a relatively heroic figure.
While Moore was not pleased with Lindelof's message, his letter likely came as a result of the showrunner's respect for him. During the 2019 Television Critics Association press tour (via Entertainment Weekly), Lindelof said he struggled with the fact that Moore had opted to keep his name off the HBO adaptation:
"I don't think that I’ve made peace with it. Alan Moore is a genius, in my opinion, the greatest writer in the comic medium and maybe the greatest writer of all time. He's made it very clear that he doesn't want to have any association or affiliation with 'Watchmen' ongoing, and that we not use his name to get people to watch it, which I want to respect."
Ultimately, it's clear that Lindelof was passionate about Watchmen, and just intended to put his own spin on the property. His efforts paid off, since HBO's Watchmen went on to be one of the most well-regarded live-action comic book adaptations of the last decade.