Of course they freaking are.
We’ll grant that the skeptics have some good points: the only source of this news is Rich Johnston over at Bleeding Cool, and DC has refused to confirm it. On the other hand, Johnston isn’t some ravening fanboy and, as we’ve discovered previously, has a sense of humor about his work, but still takes it seriously. So, if he’s running a story, there’s something behind it.
And frankly what Johnston’s claiming sounds pretty much exactly DC’s style: four prequel miniseries, each focusing on a different character, each with some major talent in the lead. Names thrown around include Andy Kubert, J. Michael Strawzin Strahin…the “Babylon 5” guy, JG Jones and Darwyn Cooke, all the kind of names DC would throw at one of their prized franchises.
Why now? Our guess is that the movie was popular enough that Warner Brothers wants to do a sequel at some point, but there’s no sequel miniseries coming, ever. So, rather than do what Hollywood usually does, namely B.S. a godawful script, they’re doing the comic series first. It helps that “Watchmen” is one of the best-selling graphic novels of all time, and that DC is currently on a sales roll, especially digitally. A “Watchmen” miniseries is exactly the kind of bait they like to dangle in front of casual readers.
In short, it’s probably happening, but at least it also probably won’t suck.
[ via the ones who watch the watchmen at Bleeding Cool ]