resinrats

Which is a major problem with the filmmaking. No movie should need to have people have read the story elsewhere to be enjoyed. It should be made as if the movie Watchmen was the only version ever made.

RichC2

Most people I know that have seen it have never read the graphic novel and know very little, if anything, about it. They all enjoyed it a great deal with a few reservations: 1) The fakeness of the sets hit a raw note a few times, 2) Why is Dr. Manhattan naked?, otherwise it was neither confusing nor boring to most of them.

In otherwords, Snyder did succeed in making a fairly accessible movie for a good number of people that aren't familiar with the source. The content itself just isn't satisfying to the masses (too much sex (apparently people want violence not awkward sex scenes or blue wang), too much angst, too much strangeness in general), it isn't so much inaccessible as just displeasing to some folks.

The CinemaScore for Watchmen was a B... That's doesn't bode well for a 3 hour R-rated flick (which already has 1) stricter admissions under 17 and 2) limited showings, not to mention how discouraging a nearly 3 hour runtime is to begin with). To compare Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and Iron Man all got A grades, Ang Lee's Hulk had a B-, and Superman Returns got a B+.

calhoun07

I guess I have a hard time grasping the concept of exactly why people who never read the Watchmen book won't enjoy the movie. I really don't think that's it...there are quite a few people who never even knew this was a comic book and enjoyed the hell out of the movie.

I think the problem is in the marketing...if you never heard of the Watchmen before you would think this was the next X-Men. There are masses of people who saw this opening weekend who never read the comic and just saw the advertising and thought it looked cool, and they expected X-Men-type action. Hell, they expected ACTION.

Maybe the people who enjoyed it who never read the graphic novel are the type who never really paid attention to the advertising, or they read up on it a bit more to know it wasn't going to be X-Men 4.

All I am saying is the studio really dropped the ball on marketing on this, and the second week shows it's biting them in the ass. People who misunderstood the movie based on advertising are now being told that they need to read the graphic novel now to REALLY enjoy the movie are only going to be pissed off. Hell, would you want to read the book of a movie you didn't enjoy? Double failure for the studio.

Brack

I think you made some good points, though I thought there was plenty of action, or at least plenty to look at, in every shot. It wasn't wall-to-wall action, but still entertaining for every second. Maybe everyone just needed to see this on an IMAX screen, I dunno.

While I didn't know much about Watchmen before seeing it, the marketing worked on me. I thought the visuals and song choices for the trailers/ads were great, even if I had no idea what it was about. I was surprised in how thoughtful of a film it was. I guess it was too thoughtful for American audiences.

Kal-El

How else would you have marketed it as? Of course you have to show what little action there is. Otherwise, you're letting Joe Public know that it's actually a bunch of horribly dressed HUMANS trying to act all superhero-y by talking a whole damn lot. So their tv spot taglines "you've never seen superheroes like these before" was pretty accurate when you think about it.

The studio didn't drop the ball on it. They worked with what they had. Heck, even the screenwriter already admitted on his pathetic begging letter that this was a movie "for the fans". That's fine. They saw it. But apparently, nobody else did afterwards.

RocShemp

I wasn't aware of that. Was this recent?

stingermck

With several box-office analysts predicting that Watchmen will experience a steep revenue plunge at the box office this weekend, David Hayter, who adapted the original graphic novel for the screen, has issued a call to Watchmen fans to return to theaters. "You have to understand, everyone is watching to see how the film will do in its second week," said Hayter in a letter posted on the HardcoreNerdity.com.

"If you're thinking of seeing it again anyway, please go back this weekend, Friday or Saturday night." He implored fans to demonstrate their power, "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."

RocShemp

Thanks for that information, stingermck.

It's cool to see that he still supports the film even though problems with the studio forced him to step down from the director's chair and a new writer was hired to retool his screenplay.

The Bus

Check your dictionary. Cult hits, by definition, do not open to $50+ million dollars.

Ronnie Dobbs

Watchmen may change that.

wm lopez

In these times of tax payers bailing out banks who them give themselves bonus with tax payer's money. I show no pity if a comic movie takes a a dive in it's 2nd week at the box-office. Consumers should look out for themselves now. Pay to see it once. If it's that good wait for the dvd. And only but it when the dvd is $10. Because if we are going to pay over $20 we'll be happy and wait for the double dip dvd.

RichC2

Taken was down only 9% this weekend, that movie has some crazy legs.

stingermck

Saturday numbers:

1. Race To Witch Mountain $11.5M Sat, est $26M wkd
2. Watchmen $7.8M Sat, est $18M wkd
3. Last House On The Left $5.3M Sat, est $14.2M wkd

Iron_Giant

My son and I did not see the movie because of the R rating. We always go see SuperHero movies together, but the R rating was too R for my young one.

Great that they keep to the heart and style of the "Graphic Novel", but they are paying the price at the boxoffice.

This may be the only SuperHero movie the two of us have not gone to see together.

stingermck

Punisher War Zone?

RocShemp

Regardless of the rating, if you go into this looking for a super hero movie you're going to like it even less than I did. In a nutshell, it's a drama/murder mystery (yes, there's more to it than just that) that happens to feature super heroes as its main characters.

Mr. Cinema

1 N Race to Witch Mountain BV $25,000,000 - 3,187 - $7,844 $25,000,000 - 1
2 1 Watchmen WB $18,070,000 -67.3% 3,611 - $5,004 $86,005,000 $150 2
3 N The Last House on the Left (2009) Uni. $14,658,000 - 2,401 - $6,105 $14,658,000 - 1
4 3 Taken Fox $6,650,000 -9.3% 2,858 -158 $2,327 $126,833,000 - 7
5 2 Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail LGF $5,130,000 -39.9% 2,203 +52 $2,329 $83,209,000 - 4
6 4 Slumdog Millionaire FoxS $5,025,000 -26.2% 2,578 -312 $1,949 $132,625,000 $15 18
7 5 Paul Blart: Mall Cop Sony $3,100,000 -25.2% 2,281 -277 $1,359 $137,767,000 $26 9
8 6 He's Just Not That Into You WB (NL) $2,905,000 -27.7% 1,890 -555 $1,537 $89,004,000 - 6
9 7 Coraline Focus $2,655,000 -18.5% 1,768 -191 $1,502 $69,144,000 - 6
10 N Miss March FoxS $2,350,000 - 1,742 - $1,349 $2,350,000 - 1
11 8 Confessions of a Shopaholic BV $2,004,000 -35.4% 1,591 -699 $1,260 $41,357,000 - 5
12 10 Fired Up SGem $1,650,000 -33.4% 1,518 -280 $1,087 $15,435,000 $20 4
13 11 Gran Torino WB $1,500,000 -26.3% 1,102 -418 $1,361 $143,824,000 $33 14
14 12 The Reader Wein. $1,346,000 -30.1% 1,002 -173 $1,343 $31,924,000 $32 14

fumanstan

Hey, it still didn't drop as much as Hulk!

mikehunt

local radio show that does a movie segment on Fridays covered Watchment the other week. The reviewer gave it great reviews yet when it came time to play a clip they picked stuff with the worst dialog possible. Made George Lucas dialog sound spectacular

I hope they simply had two bad examples and that the whole movie wasn't that bad

tylergfoster

Taken's hold is amazing. And it's a good movie too.

Brack

a lot of things sound silly out of context.

dan30oly

I can, and I love it.

chris_sc77

Or Cloverfield.

fumanstan

How come? I actually don't care and don't see why people are comparing the two, but I don't see why it matters which made more.

JJE-187

I never read the GN of Watchmen and I loved the movie. I seen two movies this weekend. FU which was yay and Last House which was meh. I plan on watching Witch Mountain and Miss March this week so hopefully there better or at least March better have nudity