DMZ’s creators made some radical changes to make it ready for HBO Max

polygon.com:

When fans of Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli’s DMZ watch the TV adaptation debuting on HBO Max on March 17, they’ll find a much different story than in the DC comic of the same name that debuted in 2005.

Though it still takes place in the fictional demilitarized zone in Manhattan that was created after a second American civil war, the war-torn imagery is gone, as is the general feeling of pandemonium, the desperate need for community in order to survive. Gone also is the comic’s protagonist, journalist Matty Roth, and his story of chronicling the early years of the DMZ and anchoring the many stories within.

Instead, the story of the HBO Max miniseries produced by Ava Duvernay is significantly scaled-down compared to the source material. Following the pilot episode’s debut at SXSW, the actors and showrunner of DMZ took the stage to talk about the process of making the show, how they ended up with just four packed episodes, and explain just who the new protagonist is.

The new version of DMZ centers around Alma Ortega (Rosario Dawson) as she navigates the DMZ in the hopes of finding her lost son, while getting involved in a local power struggle for control of the DMZ in the lead up to an election.

She has connections to several key players around the DMZ, and her role is more active than, say, a journalist observing things unfold. Instead, she almost immediately finds herself in the thick of things, working in a clinic and seeing the violence of the DMZ up close and personal.

“We decided that this story meant something different 10 years after it was first published,” said showrunner Roberto Patino. “So we took the most interesting character, a background character with no name, and built her personality and a story