Re: Box Office Predictions: Watchmen
 

:up: :up:

Re: Box Office Predictions: Watchmen
 

Saw a link to this on Rotten Tomatoes. David Hayter asking people to see this again this weekend, so the 2nd week drop isn't too bad, so studios take chances on risky movies like this in the future.



AN OPEN LETTER FROM A WATCHMEN SCREENWRITER

So it has been five months since I saw my first rough cut of WATCHMEN, and eight days since the premiere of the film I've been working on since late in the year 2000.

The reviews are out -- Some outstanding, others rankly dismissive, which can be frustrating for the people involved, (though I can only speak for myself,) because I firmly believe that WATCHMEN, the novel, must be read through more than once to even have the faintest grip on it. And I believe the film is the same.

I've seen it twice now, and despite having run the movie in my head thousands of times, my two viewings still don’t' allow me to view the film with the proper distance or objectivity. Is it Apocalypse Now? Is it Blade Runner? Is it Kubrick, or Starship Troopers? I don’t know yet.

All I know is that I had a pretty amazing experience the two times I've seen it. And both viewings produced remarkably different experiences. The point is, I have listened for years, to complaints from true comic book fans, that "not enough movies take the source material seriously." "Too many movies puss out," or "They change great stories, just to be commercial." Well, I f***ing dare you to say any one of those things about this movie.

This is a movie made by fans, for fans. Hundreds of people put in years of their lives to make this movie happen, and every one of them was insanely committed to retaining the integrity of this amazing, epic tale. This is a rare success story, bordering on the impossible, and every studio in town is watching to see if it will work. Hell, most of them own a piece of the movie.

So look, this is a note to the fanboys and fangirls. The true believers. Dedicated for life.

If the film made you think. Or argue with your friends. If it inspired a debate about the nature of man, or vigilante justice, or the horror of Nixon abolishing term limits. If you laughed at Bowie hanging with Adrian at Studio 54, or the Silhouette kissing that nurse.

Please go see the movie again next weekend.

You have to understand, everyone is watching to see how the film will do in its second week. If you care about movies that have a brain, or balls, (and this film's got both, literally), or true adaptations -- And if you're thinking of seeing it again anyway, please go back this weekend, Friday or Saturday night. Demonstrate the power of the fans, because it'll help let the people who pay for these movies know what we'd like to see. Because if it drops off the radar after the first weekend, they will never allow a film like this to be made again.

In the interests of full disclosure, let me also point out that I do not profit one cent from an increase in box office, although an increase in box office can add to the value of the writers' eventual residual profits from dvd and tv sales.

But I'm not saying it for money. I'm saying it for people like me. I'm saying it for people who love smart, dark entertainment, on a grand, operatic scale. I'm talking to the Snake fans, the Rorschach fans, the people of the Dark Knight.

And hey, if you hated the film, if you think we committed atrocities, or literary mistakes of a massive, cephalopodic nature. If the movie made you a little sick to your stomach, or made you feel bad about your life. If you hated it for whatever reason, that's cool too. I'm not suggesting you risk gastro-intestinal distress just for the sake of risky filmmaking.

But if you haven't seen it yet? Well, I'll just say this...

It may upset you. And it probably will upset you.

And all along, we really meant it to.

Because face it. All this time...You there, with the Smiley-face pin. Admit it.

All this time, you’ve been waiting for a director who was going to hit you in the face with this story. To just crack you in the jaw, and then bend you over the pool table with this story. With its utterly raw view of the darkest sides of human nature, expressed through its masks of action and beauty and twisted good intentions. Like a fry-basket full of hot grease in the face. Like the Comedian on the Grassy Knoll. I know, I know...

You say you don't like it. You say you've got issues. I get it.

And yet... You'll be thinking about this film, down the road. It'll nag at you. How it was rough and beautiful. How it went where it wanted to go, and you just hung on. How it was thoughtful and hateful and bleak and hilarious. And for Jackie Earle Haley.

Trust me. You'll come back, eventually. Just like Sally.

Might as well make it count for something.


David Hayter

Re: Box Office Predictions: Watchmen
 

"Just like Sally"

Just like Rhianna.

Re: Box Office Predictions: Watchmen
 

since little of interest is coming this Friday I probably will see this again.

are there any numbers for the IMAX screenings/intake of the film?

Re: Box Office Predictions: Watchmen
 

I'll probably go back for a fourth viewing sometime this weekend, after I've seen Witch Mountain, Last House on the Left and Miss March though....so I'll have to see if I can squeeze Watchmen in....

Re: Box Office Predictions: Watchmen
 

I hope that's sarcasm there cuz Jesus...you got some poor taste there...Watchmen is easily the better one of that group..

Re: Box Office Predictions: Watchmen
 

Agreed. I respect that they're willing to make films like this but if you're going to make a movie that will appeal only to fans then don't be upset when only fans go and see it.

Re: Box Office Predictions: Watchmen
 

^ example. 'Grindhouse'

Re: Box Office Predictions: Watchmen
 

Well considering he's already seen Watchmen 3 times...

Re: Box Office Predictions: Watchmen
 

Maybe WATCHMEN is the perfect example of how you should only be loyal to the source material up unto the point it starts hurting your movie. I loved the comic, but I have to admit that I will only ever see this movie as a suppliment to the comic, not as a seperate, satisfying experience.

There are far greater books than Watchmen that got turned into great movies because the source material was only used as a reference, not a blueprint:

The Wizard Of Oz
The Godfather
Planet of the Apes ("Monkey Planet")
2001: A Space Odyssey

The Lord of the Rings trilogy showed that you could remain loyal and still make great films, but I think that trilogy is going to remain one of the exceptions to the rule rather than the rule.

Yes, I suppose we should applaud the filmmakers for their loyalty to the fanbase, but creativity got sacrificed because of it, and I think it shows in the final product.

Re: Box Office Predictions: Watchmen
 

I always make my final decision based on the director's cut of the film ;)

Re: Box Office Predictions: Watchmen
 

You must hate Donnie Darko, then. ;)

Re: Box Office Predictions: Watchmen
 

^ I'm indifferent to both cuts of 'Donnnie Darko' ;)

Re: Box Office Predictions: Watchmen
 

Excellent points. I would also like to cite George Roy Hill's THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP as a superb distillation of a very complex and multi-layered novel. The film captures the essence of the book without slavishly adhering to Irving's writings. (At the same time, SIMON BIRCH failed on almost every level to convey the themes and ideas of A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY.)

I haven't seen WATCHMEN (yet), but I have to imagine that only a mini-series which literally captures every panel would do true justice to the material.

Re: Box Office Predictions: Watchmen
 

2nd weekend prediction: 25 mil

Re: Box Office Predictions: Watchmen
 

You shouldn't need to beg the fanboys--your target audience--to go see it again if you believe your product was THAT good to begin with.

Re: Box Office Predictions: Watchmen
 

Haha.

Re: Box Office Predictions: Watchmen
 

post a link please.

nevermind, found it.

http://www.hardcorenerdity.com/profi...ogPost%3A40658

Re: Box Office Predictions: Watchmen
 

Exactly! Part of me likes the passion of trying to rally the base, but it comes off a bit whiny, forced, and almost gets to the point of it's up to you to make this successful so I can do more... So if the fans don't see it again and again...whose fault is it there will be no more movies/work like this?

<i>Is it Apocalypse Now? Is it Blade Runner? Is it Kubrick, or Starship Troopers? I don’t know yet.</i>

As everything should/needs to come back to The Wire, this reminds me of the scene where Bunk says "Jim Brown played Lacrosse", Fremon responds with "You putting yourself in with Jim Brown?" Is the screenwriter really drawing comparisons to the movies & director above?

Re: Box Office Predictions: Watchmen
 

Snakes on a Plane.

Serenity.

Re: Box Office Predictions: Watchmen
 

That message from Hayter reminded me of when Eli Roth whined about Hostel II.

Re: Box Office Predictions: Watchmen
 

One voice of hope (aka not trying to be hip by talking about how it "failed") for the B.O.

By Scott Thill

Cult Status, Comic Sales Could Boost Watchmen Box Office
http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2009...en-number.html

When Zack Snyder's cinematic adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' canonical comic Watchmen raked in $55 million after its domestic opening and over $26 million in its international debut, armchair quarterbacking over the impossibility of a Dark Knight-like payday kicked into overdrive. This weekend's performance is pivotal for those quarterbacks, which includes critics and fans, and also for studio executives reliant upon superhero tent-poles to keep their sagging business afloat.

Hollyweird metrics indicate that the $150-plus million movie, saddled with a $50 million marketing bill, won't match The Dark Knight's numbers. But that was a pipe dream from the get-go, given the cerebral source material featuring a nuclear dystopia drained of conventional heroism. Creeping towards $70 million in domestic receipts at about $3 million per day, Watchmen needs several big weekends to recoup its expense. Standard viewer drop-off makes that a daunting challenge.

But there is one wild card working in the Watchmen film's favor, and it is a glaring one: The comic.

"We have sold more than a million copies since the Watchmen trailer debuted with The Dark Knight last summer," a spokesperson for DC Comics told Wired.com via email. The spokesperson neither confirmed or denied a huge uptick in sales after the film's opening, but it seems probable, especially after reading the humorous comments from DC Comics president and publisher Paul Levitz on how Snyder's controversial adaptation has sent comics flying off the shelves.

"We literally can't print enough," Levitz told Wired.com at Comic-Con in 2008. "I don't think we've been able to kill any more trees fast enough."

Judging by the best-sellers lists, that pace has most likely accelerated since the film's opening. Watchmen entered USA Today's Top 150 in 2008 shortly after its trailer premiered during screenings of The Dark Knight last July. Since then, sales skyrocketed into the Top 10. After the film's opening last week, Watchmen shot up to the number two slot and there it remains.

Similarly, on the New York Times' newly christened graphic novel best-seller list, Watchmen currently owns the top spot for comic paperbacks as well as third position for hardcovers.

As New York Times' bookworm George Gene Gustines wrote, "There is going to be a lot of Alan Moore on these lists for the first couple of months."

And therein lies Watchmen's hope for a cult-film following that could carry the movie all the way into summer. If newbie consumers who saw the film without reading the comic first go back to theaters for repeat viewings after a taste of the graphic novel, that should keep box-office obsessives smiling through the blood.

And then there is Watchmen's intense marketing blitz. Ramming home the point with ubiquitous posters, action figures, comics and viral campaigns, the advertising spectacle should convince anyone who still hasn't seen the film or the comic that there's something behind the buzz.

Yet the key demographic are those who saw the movie but have not read the original work. Given the comic's increasingly stellar performance on the best-seller lists, burgeoning interest in the comic could lead right back to the film for compare-and-contrast nerd sessions aimed at sussing out sub-narratives, Easter eggs and more.

Thanks to the dense source material, Snyder's Watchmen seems destined for cult-classic longevity in the vein of other controversial R-rated classics including Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange or Terry Gilliam's Brazil. Like The Dark Knight before it, Watchmen is not without its own flaws, but nevertheless stands as a shining example what comics can do on the big screen when they are taken seriously by Hollywood.

Other factors bode well for Watchmen, the movie. This weekend, Watchmen battles lightweight remakes like Disney's Race to Witch Mountain and Wes Craven's Last House on the Left. The next potential blockbuster won't show up until May, when Terminator: Salvation is released.

Of course, this is all speculation: Watchmen's fate will be decided in the next few weeks. Will it turn into a word-of-mouth sensation, or wither in the shadow of Christian Bale and the latest Terminator holocaust? What do you think? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.

Re: Box Office Predictions: Watchmen
 

Right, because Wolverine won't provide any competition...:sarcasm:

Re: Box Office Predictions: Watchmen
 

Exactly. If we're basing competition soley on what the Watchmen demographic would go for then Wolverine and Star Trek is true compeition and comes out before Terminator.

Otherwise you have movies coming out next weekend that can lock up the "average movie goer", such as The Knowing and the late teen/early 20's demo with I Love You Man.

Also I don't care how the comic and the toys are selling. People who saw the movie, never read the novel and liked it are probably interested in picking up the novel now. I'm in that boat. Saw the movie, enjoyed it plenty and have a desire to read the book and will sometime in the future.

The bottom line here is that the huge marketing blitz failed and this movie failed to catch the eye of someone that doesn't know what Watchmen is. Part of that is the R-Rating and part of that is the long run time but it's mostly because people who aren't fans just didn't get excited for it.

Re: Box Office Predictions: Watchmen
 

Monsters vs. Aliens is going to be the next "blockbuster"...and we only have to wait until March 27th for that.