Jeremy Irons has joined the cast of the HBO TV pilot Watchmen. The planned series is an adaptation of the graphic novel by Dave Gibbons and Alan Moore which was previously turned into a film by Zack Snyder a few years back.
Regina King, Don Johnson, Tim Blake Nelson, Louis Gossett Jr., Adelaide Clemens and Andrew Howard are also amongst the cast of the pilot, a new take on proceedings written by Damon Lindelof.
Watchmen is set in an alternate world where the mere presence of American superheroes changed history, the US won the Vietnam War, Nixon is still president, and the cold war is in full effect. Watchmen begins as a murder-mystery, but soon unfolds into a planet-altering conspiracy. As the resolution comes to a head, the unlikely group of reunited heroes–Rorschach, Nite Owl, Silk Spectre, Dr. Manhattan and Ozymandias — have to test the limits of their convictions and ask themselves where the true line is between good and evil.
That’s from the source material but Lndelof insists the project is not an adaptation of the 12 issues of the comic but an original story that remixes them.
There are no details on who Irons will play in the series but Deadline is reporting that the legendary British actor will play an ageing and imperious lord of a British manor.
Irons was last seen in the film version of the novel Red Sparrow opposite Jennifer Lawrence.
More on the HBO Watchmen series as it comes in.
