It’s an interesting test of someone to ask what music automatically plays in their head if they think of the HBO intro sound. For most at the moment, it’s probably the Game of Thrones theme, but for some it’s Veep, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Sopranos or Sex and the City.
Soon another show theme will kick in after the HBO logo: Watchmen – an interesting new take on Alan Moore’s seminal graphic novel. The first trailer has landed to give you a taste of the kind of tone to expect:
There’s not a lot to go on, but you do get a first glimpse at a cast featuring Regina King, Hong Chau, Tim Blake Nelson and Don Johnson. Perhaps most intriguing of all is the briefest of cameos from Jeremy Irons as Ozymandias.
To be clear, this isn’t a reworking of the movie or the graphic novel. As show creator Damon Lindelof – him of Lost fame – wrote in a five-page open letter bafflingly published on Instagram, this will be a new story set in the Watchmen universe. “This story will be set in the world its creators painstakingly built,” he wrote. “But in the tradition of the work that inspired it, this new story must be original. It has to vibrate with the seismic unpredictability of its own tectonic plates.”
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If you’re left none the wiser by that letter and the trailer, perhaps the words of the graphic novel’s artist Dave Gibbons will help. “It certainly wasn’t what I imagined it to be,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “I think it’s extremely fresh. I’m really looking forward to seeing it on the screen. I’ve been resistant to the comic book prequels and sequels, but what Damon’s doing is not that at all, it’s very far away from that.”
No release date yet, but we should find out what that means later this year.
