On March 6th, the movie Watchmen opens in theaters.
The super hero movie is based on the 1986 comic book of the same name, which is the “Citizen Kane” of comic books.
Watchmen was published by DC Comics in single issues during 1986 and 1987.
Due to the tremendous popularity of the comic book, the Warner Brothers’ movie is one of the most highly anticipated films of 2009. However, regardless of the movie’s quality, Land of Punt believes Watchmen will fail at the box office.
It will have a robust opening weekend and then ticket sales will drastically taper off.
There’s a cult-like following for the Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ comic book, but there’s just not enough fanboys to make the movie Watchmen a success.
Most of the movie going public will look at the trailers for the film and ask, “Where’s Batman? Where’s Superman? What type of super heroes are those?”
Terry Gilliam, of Monty Python fame, was once slated to direct a film version of Watchmen.
The film’s director Zack Snyder impressed with his film 300, but people don’t go to the movies to see a director direct, they go to see actors. This is where Watchmen really suffers.
The films “biggest” names, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Patrick Wilson, Matt Frewer and Carla Gugino, couldn’t draw their families to a movie much less the general public.
Special effects are nice but they don’t make the film. Unfortunate since early reviews indicate the movie is long on visuals and short on substance.
Also, there have been preliminary rumblings about the film’s narration. Films with narration are generally wrought with problems; films with bad narration tend to be disastrous.
Watchmen is 161 minutes long, which is twice as long as it took to draw the comic book.
However, we are swaying away from our original premise. Whether the movie is good, great or egregious will be decided on March 6th, we are here to discuss its box office revenue.
Using words like “bomb” or “bust” are too general and open for interpretation. Therefore, in the hopes of being specific, Land of Punt predicts Watchmen won’t gross $120 million (the film’s cost, not including marketing) domestically in ten weeks.
Citizen Kane, Monty Python and Carla Gugino were all mentioned in this article and all can be found in the Land of Punt. As for Watchmen the movie, we’ll have to wait until March 6th.
Popularity: 1% [?]
You might be right about weak box-office returns for this film. I can’t disagree with any point you’ve made so far.
Let us not forget, this movie has been in development since the book came out and bounced around every major studio.
The story and style of storytelling has been considered my many, especially its biggest fans as ‘unfilmable.’
The book’s writer, Alan Moore wants no part of the film’s adaptation to the big screen, he even gave his money to the artist of the book and had he name removed from the credits.
And regardless of how well the movie is made, or how faithful it is to the original story and images, there is no way it will live up to the legendary status of the comic book. In order for it to do just that, it will have to be as revolutionary to films as the book was to comics twenty-three years ago, and even the best comic-book adaptation hasn’t come close to that.
Let’s not forget that this film is rated R, and is opening in March, the weekend of Daylight Savings Time. (yeah, it means nothing to me either)
The movie is never as good as the book, or so I’ve heard about every adaptation, EVER.
So to say that the film will generate $120 million domestically in ten weeks is being very generous on your behalf.
However, as a fan of the book and the movie I hope they are releasing this week, I hope this film is a huge success. I love this story, I love these characters, and by bringing the Watchmen to the big screen, a lot of people may get to share in unadulterated geek-joy.
At least it’s not Valkeyrie II.
An effects-laden action pic based on a series of classic comics, “Watchmen” registered $182 million in worldwide boxoffice. Though the pic was something of a theatrical underachiever, it’s considered a candidate to outperform in home entertainment release.
From http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/film/news/e3i4b5caa365ad73b3adca7fe25901208d4
The prediction was domestic, not worldwide. $75 million of it’s $182 million came from overseas.