Maybe some adaptations just need a vibe check. While in conversation with his friend Mike Schur at this year’s Vulture Fest, Cord Jefferson said that rather than trying to stick to everything that happens in the source material, it’s more important to reflect the “spirit†of the OG. But how can you be sure if you’ve captured the essence of what you’re adapting? “That’s like the Supreme Court definition of pornography. Like, you know it when you see it,†Jefferson said. “That’s an inaccurate measurement, but it’s just kind of … yeah, eyeballing it to see if that feels right. And so that’s how I felt going into [American Fiction].†The writer-director estimates that two-thirds of his upcoming directorial debut are “vastly different†from Percival Everett’s Erasure, the book it is based on. And he’s been true to this philosophy: As an example, Jefferson referenced a scene in Watchmen where Jeremy Irons murders and then launches servants and butlers into space to spell out an SOS message. “It’s just crazy. And that has no bearing and has no relationship, really, to the actual text,†said Jefferson, who wrote for the HBO series. “The relationship that it has to the actual text is just that it’s weird, and it feels Watchmen-y.†For the record, Jefferson would describe Watchmen’s spirit as “a little dangerous, “kind of sexual,†“dark,†but also “very, very funny.†Honestly? An aspirational vibe.