HBO is one step closer to their TV adaptation of Watchmen, based on the graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. The show, which is being run by Damon Lindelof (The Leftovers, Lost), has announced six of its principal cast members.

The show will star Regina King (American Crime), Don Johnson (Miami Vice), Tim Blake Nelson (O Brother, Where Art Thou?), Louis Gossett Jr. (An Officer and a Gentleman), Adelaide Clemens (Rectify), and Andrew Howard (Hatfields & McCoys). Character details were not part of the news, so their connection to the graphic novel’s characters is still unknown.

This version will appear as an alternate history with superheroes as outlaws. It’s been described as embracing the source material while also infusing some new style and content. Lindelof wrote the pilot and is executive producing along with Tom Spezialy and Nicole Kassell (The Leftovers).

Lindelof shared that everything from the graphic novel is part of the new series. “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. To be clear. Watchmen is canon. … We are not making a ‘sequel’ either,” Lindelof wrote this week. “This story will be set in the world its creators painstakingly built. … But in the tradition of the work that inspired it, this new story must be original. … Some of the characters will be unknown. New faces. New masks to cover them."