The Internet, you may have noticed, appears to have become awash with word of Watchmen 2 over the past day or so, courtesy primarily of a post from Rich Johnston at Bleeding Cool. Johnston has uncovered plans to develop a sequel project to the Watchmen comic book, which is the best-selling DC publication ever.

The idea, reports the site, of a Watchmen 2 had been held off by previous DC head honcho Paul Levitz, who believed it would be against the wishes of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. But Levitz is no longer in that role, and thus the belief is that Dan DiDio, senior vice-president/executive editor at DC, is now investigating the idea of Watchmen spin-offs, with a prequel mini-series in the offing.

Contractually, it seems that Gibbons and Moore have to be offered the project first, but if they turn it down, it can still go ahead. Soundings, Johnston reports, have been taken from those who may be interested in taking on the challenge.

The full story, which goes into some detail, can be found here, and right now, the world seems to be awaiting some kind of formal response from all concerned.

One offshoot of the story, though, is that some speculated another movie may then be in the offing. That, however, won't be happening. Over at Deadline Hollywood, Nikki Finke quotes an insider as saying "There is no truth to anything related to a movie sequel. Not a chance by a longshot."

The ultimately disappointing grosses from the Watchmen movie, considering how much it cost to make, outright killed any chance of that happening. And that's before the legal spat between Fox and Warner Bros, which, no doubt, covers potential sequels, is taken into account.

We await further developments with trepidation. And kudos, of course, to Bleeding Cool for breaking the story.