Jeremy Irons joins the cast of HBO’s Watchmen series

Oscar and Emmy winning actor Jeremy Irons has joined the cast of HBO’s Watchmen series as “the leading men,” according to The Hollywood Reporter. While details on who Irons will play are sparse, THR has it that he’ll likely portray “an aging and imperious lord of a British manor.”

So Jeremy Irons will be play Jeremy Irons. I kid.

Irons joins a cast that also includes Regina King (The Leftovers), Don Johnson (Miami Vice, Eastbound and Down), and Tim Blake Nelson (The Ballad of Buster Scruggs), among others. Lost and The Leftovers showrunner Damon Lindelof will steer this ship.

In May, Lindelof posted a five-page letter to fans of Watchmen, explaining that his series won’t be an adaptation, but will be a story set in the same universe as the popular graphic novel. As he took pains to detail, everything happened during the original run of the story will be “canon” in the new show.

Lindelof wrote more about his intentions this week:

"We have no desire to ‘adapt’ the twelve issues Mr. Moore and Mr. Gibbons created thirty years ago. Those issues are sacred ground and will not be retread nor recreated nor reproduced nor rebooted. They will however be remixed. Because the bass lines in those familiar tracks are just too good and we’d be fools not to sample them. Those original twelve issues are our Old Testament. When the New Testament came along it did not erase what came before it. Creation. The Garden of Eden. Abraham and Isaac. The Flood. It all happened. And so it will be with Watchmen. The Comedian died. Dan and Laurie fell in love. Ozymandias saved the world and Dr. Manhattan left it just after blowing Rorschach to pieces in the bitter cold of Antarctica."

Even though this series will take place decades after the events of Watchmen, Lindelof is not calling his show a sequel. In fact, it doesn’t appear as if any of the original characters will. Instead, the show promises to be set against the turbulent political landscape of today, just like the original was against the turbulent political landscape of the 1980s.

Excited fans awaiting what HBO and Lindelof will add to the Watchmen story have already been buzzing around Macon, Georgia, where the show is being filmed, snapping photos. One fan sent a few into /Film that seem to reveal the fate of one of the major characters from the original graphic novel. Warning: SPOILERS ahoy.

Still here? Great, let’s continue. Going off the photos sent to /Film, it appears as if, in this story, Adrian Veidt, aka Ozymandias, has died.

In the graphic novel, Adrian Veidt is a genius billionaire and former superhero who turns out to be the main villain of the story. The graphic climaxes when Veidt, in an attempt to unite the peoples of Earth in the face of escalating international tensions, stages an attack from a space alien in New York City, killing millions.

Other photos reveal street signs pointing citizens to shelters that will protect them from alien, known to Watchmen fans as “the squid.” Apparently, people are still afraid all these years later.

This is a unique take on an adaptation. It remains to be seen how it turns out, but we’re excited.

Next: Westworld season 2, episode 10 recap: “The Passenger”

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