$28.1 million.
Want to put the Watchmen opening into perspective? That’s your number.
It’s what 300 did on its opening Friday, two years ago.
Opening weekend, of course, has nothing to do with the quality of the movie. It
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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?
So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.
And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.
There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.
I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.
But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”
My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher
“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.
~ David Simon
Watchmen better make all the money it can this weekend, because I don’t think things will be too rosy for it from here on out.
I’m glad that Taken is still showing great legs and hanging around. The rampant availability of it online due to piracy from other countries or legal imports had no negative effect on it’s performance here in the States.
That tumble for that boy band concert must put it in the record books with other movies for >80% drops on Friday-to-Friday.
Could be worse, could be better. Can’t think of more to say until I see it. But I’m guessing if Sat/Sun drops, people will call it underwhelming.
Just how ****ed is the state of the industry (and “entertainment” reporting in general) when a $24-$25-million opening day gross is considered “underwhelming”?
I’m sure that the jackals are already poised to write their box-office obits for “Watchmen” by Sunday afternoon.
Totally wacked.
It’s a disappointment to overblown expectations. Analysts were talking about a 70+ weekend. It’ll do closer to $60M.
I notice One Week got mentioned up there, it’s a Canadian movie that’s received a bigger push than usual, because Canadian movies never receive pushes. I saw it last week and can assure you that it is fucking terrible.
It also got mentioned on MCN news roll yesterday because its advertisements featured quotes from YouTube. All things considered, that’s a pretty strong showing for just one day.
movieman – the hype does “bring out the jackals,” but the price tag makes this a legitimate conversation.
When your breakeven, all in, REQUIRES almost $400m in worldwide box office, a $25 million opening day is fine if it looks like it’s leading to an $80 million 3-day. It’s fine if you are ahead of the film success your budget was based on… 300. It’s fine if that number is a surprise success for any reason and not a pumped up figure that still suggests that $200 million domestic total in the spring is out of range.
But none of those are true here.
So there will be heat. And if the movie’s audience supports the film, all of it will go away.
300 is the only March/April release to EVER do $200m domestic.
So the real next argument is, why didn’t Watchmen come out in the summer, when no matter what the reviews, a stronger Wed-Sun and even the next set of weekdays had more inherent box office promise?
Ona purely financial basis, August was the place for this film. They could have used ComicCon as the launching pad… in a way no other movie really has in the past… a massive summer comic book film a few weeks from release. And August has a history of tougher, harder films doing some real business.
But they decided that they had spring all to themselves. And it seems, they may be paying a price for that… even with a $24 million Friday.
I can’t see this movie doing better in the summer, when it would have to compete against similar movies that the entire family could go to.
Late summer, Perm… and there is a reason why the biggest openings are in the summer. Also, I think that the issues of it being a Hard R would actually be of less significance as a late change-of-pace summer film. People get sick of cotton candy and like a little spice by August, it always seems to me.
I can’t believe people really thought this film had a shot to make 70 million. It’s just idiotic…300, despite the fact it sucked, had probably the most fascinating trailer of the last few years just due to the effects. With “Watchmen,” half of the reaction to the trailer has been “huh?” It’s a much more narrowly targeted picture. “300” opened so large simply due to the stylized shooting style…it was unlike anything people had ever seen. With “Watchmen,” all people unfamiliar to the comic saw was a somewhat stylized, darker version of “XMen” or “Fantastic 4,” with Znyder used as a selling point as the director of “300.” It’s a miracle this thing got above 50 million…
I went with a large group (around 15 people). 4 of us had read the comic, and had hyped it up, but the others were largely bewildered, and the 3 chicks with us were fidgeting an hour in. $200 million!? I’ll be stunned if this thing makes it to $150 million. The real question is the overseas number, and just how high the studio is going to jack the price up for the 3 and a half hour version, and the 4 hour version with the pirate tale. I suspect a lot of people (myself included as a huge fan of the book even though I’m “meh” on the movie) will throw down 30 bucks or more for the extended-extended cut.
Oh bitter irony, that this pumped up alleged next-great property is basically going to perform like a mid-level Marvel picture (Hulk 1 and Hulk 2, Fantastic Four 1 and 2, etc).
Random anecdote… I was working late last night, so my wife took our daughter to Gymboree at the Woodland Hills mall (the one housing the AMC Woodland Hills 16). Anyway, I asked her, as a joke, to take a peak at the Watchmen lines afterward and count the number of women in line. Sure enough, there were two huge lines, with about six women total (and they all allegedly looked as inconspicuous as possible, as if they were trying not to be noticed and/or didn’t want to be there).
Except look at some summer numbers from 2008…Indiana Jones opened at 25. Wall-E at 23. Wanted at 19 (this one is probably closest to Watchmen in terms of rating and being a hard action movie). Hancock at 17 (although was that a Wed?).
So…I think Watchmen’s take was pretty great and maybe they spent too much on it…but it did better opening day than Pixer or Will Smith, and I can’t see there being THAT much extra demand for it in August than now. All of those other movies besides Wanted were a lot more mainstream and Watchmen is right up there.
Watchmen is 2 hours and 40 minutes plus=less showings=less revenue.
Titanic made 8.7 million its first Friday on 2617 screens.
Fellowship Of The Ring made 18.2 million in over 3300 screens on its first Wednesday.
Whatever the drop in the second weekend, I’m sure it will be better than Friday the 13th or Jonas Bros +80%, probably around 70%.
David, I would love to see Coraline back in 3D, as I have stated several times already. But do you think that’s likely? For some reason, I don’t see it getting back in since it’s already been out. I figure theaters would want whatever’s coming out next, not something that came out a few weeks ago.
Yeah, but Smith is a worldwide movie star. His movies have legs. He opened on a Tuesday and with a $62M weekend, had $103M total by the end of the first weekend. I bet $227M DM with a $600M+ worldwide take (which is what Hancock did) would make WB thrilled. As is, a $60M opening weekend, where all the fans see the movie might not leave much for weekend 2.
A 70% drop to the second weekend, which looks real likely, would be $18M. I agree that unless this movie finds legs, then $150M domestic will be a real challenge.
I am almost surprised the movie will open to $60M. I thought with the enthusiasm (especially here) that this movie would have no problem opening to $70M. I know that is only a $10M difference, but I bet that $10M is worth quite a lot in word of mouth.
BC – There is a 2 week window between now and Monsters v Aliens. That’s probably the shot at screens that Coraline has. And it wouldn’t be shocking for Disney to pull back hard on the reins. We’ll see. But MvA probably gets virtually every 3D screen in the country.
It’s not the opening day number I am thinking about, Perm. It’s the whole first week. Legs this movie will not have. But look at movies like Bourne 3 or Signs or Rush Hour 2… similar Friday starts… and first weekdays of $29m, $28m, and $33m. That’s where the summer advanatge is. Now, these were all well-liked movies. But even if Watchmen is mixed neg, what looks like it might be a weekday pull in the teens now could have been in the 20s. And those $10 million bumps add up over even a 4 week strong run… $25m-$30m more domestic total.
Steve Mason, who leaps before he looks, is now projecting under $150m domestic. So, what I’m saying is that 15% – 20% more would be significant.
The only good news – for the Fox haters – in all this, it seems, is that Fox will get less.
Y’know, I actually miss those days when I had to turn in to E-T on Monday nite just to catch the previous weekend’s box-office figures.
Or even further back when you needed a subscription to Variety to be privy to such closely guarded industry secrets.
For all intents and purposes, the democratization of the b.o. has turned out to be a very bad, even self-destructive reality.
A local exhibitor told me yesterday that their plan is to dump the Jonas Bros. concert pic next weekend and bring back “My Bloody Valentine 3-D.” Since this same theater (a Regal ‘plex) is relatively new to the whole digital projection/3-D-capability thing (they missed the “Valentine” 3-D bandwagon by three weeks; “Coraline” was their first digitally projected 3-D film), it’s probably an isolated case. But no way is Disney going to hold onto those 1,000+ “Jonas” digital screens until “M Vs. A” hits after the “Jonas” freefall this weekend.
Watchmen is unique in the fact that it was not built to launch a franchise or assist in the sale of foam Hulk Hands. There is no Watchmen 2 in the works, never was, never will be. Part of what is amazing is that such a big budget was granted for such an adult storyline. We all have to agree that Hollywood isn’t built to make this kind of a product. That’s why it took 20 years to get made. That’s why it’s a big deal to hardcore fans.
DVD sales are down, but there will be at least 3 versions of Watchmen for the hardcore to snatch up and generate revenue. Heck, I’ll be in for at least two.
The one word I haven’t heard at all around Watchmen is Oscar. Why not? Perhaps the Dark Knight and Ledger paved the way. The one thing about a domestic gross under 200 million is that it will probably make funds tighter for an Oscar push.
By the way, I didn’t notice this but somebody on a AICN message board pointed it, in the first scene of the “Times they are a Changing” intro Night Owl saves Bruce Wayne’s parents http://motionographer.com/theater/yuco-the-watchmen-titles/
There are layers to Watchmen that are going to be revealed as people discover them, could Oscar notice?
I don’t think the runtime issue is valid anymore. These movies are in more theater than before, and there are more screens in those theaters devoted to the movie itself. Theater chains have the supply to meet the demand if necessary.
MDOC – that link isn’t working for me.
As for Oscar – no Best Pic for Watchmen, I don’t think. Effects, art direction, sound…sure. Maybe supporting nom for Haley. Doubt much else.
Though I’d nominate Crudup for supporting as well. Perfect realization of a character I’ve been a fan of for years.
David, thanks for answering. I figured there was another 3D flick coming soon, but I was drawing a blank on what it was. And I’d seen the trailer for it before Coraline. D’oh!!
If you’ve waited this long to see Coraline in 3D, you’re not exactly on the ball.
Try an all-digital place-if you don’t mind the drive, Livermore and Porterville CA, North Las Vegas NV and Monroe WA still have her in 3D.
She’s also at the Arclight.
LYT,
Not sure what happened, Devin has it embedded on his site. http://chud.com/articles/articles/18407/1/THE-AMAZING-WATCHMEN-OPENING-CREDITS-ARE-ONLINE/Page1.html
I’ve already seen it in 3D. I want it back so I can see it again.
You know this Snyder guy successfully bullshitting the geek addled studio heads into thinking Watchmen was in any way a traditional, mainstream superhero story worthy of a gazillion dollar budget makes him a wild man in a town of mild men.
He could so easily have taken the juice from his big 300 smash to cut a safe career path (a la Bay and Ratner and Favreau). But to throw it behind a project with all the mainstream pull of a Velvet Underground album… that takes big blue cosmic balls. Name another studio director who would even WANT to do that?
On that basis alone the dude is punk rock and deserves respect.
“ars gratia artis”
Agreed Crow T….
Having said that, I also think that Warner Bros. deserves some kudos for funding the film and allowing it to be made in the manner in which it was. Whether the movie is a complete success or not, I was impressed at the scope, the scale, and the seemingly uncompromising nature of the production. Warner Bros. gets a lot of crap here and there, but they seem to put their faith in visionary filmmakers much more than other studios, especially when it comes to tent pole films. If you look at the WB’s biggest hits (and biggest flops) they are almost all cases of the studio giving the director and other filmmakers incredible creative freedom to sink or swim on their own. Sometimes you get Harry Potter, sometimes you get Speed Racer, but I admire their apparent hands-off philosophy.
God I love that title sequence… anyone else notice that The Comedian, as he’s killing JFK, looks EXACTLY like Castor Troy at the beginning of Face/Off?
…on a completely unrelated (i.e., non-“Watchmen”) front, but has anyone here seen John Schlesinger’s “Darling” lately?
I have fond, if dim-ish memories of seeing it at a drive-in where it was double-billed with “Tom Jones” when I was–what?
6-7 years old??–but time has definitely not been kind.
It’s not even enjoyable as a quaint time capsule curio; the damn thing creaks worse than old Marley’s Ghost. While nobody loves Julie Christie more than I do (Christie’s been one of my reigning cinematic divas for more than four decades), not even her Oscar-winning performance can justify sitting through this sodden, archly dated slog of a movie. And is it just me, or was Laurence Harvey the original Kyle MacLachlan? Gawd, what a twitty tool Harvey was!
Re: “Watchmen.” I concur with Scott. Not everything works, but you gotta love a major studio willing to bankroll–at a pretty penny–Snyder’s whole vision thing. The killer title sequence alone was, for me anyway, better than anything in “TDK,” and Haley’s Rorschach belongs in the same exalted league as Ledger’s Oscared Joker.
That said, I’m glad I did my homework by reading the book (days) before seeing it: my moderate-to-enthusiastic reaction might have been different otherwise. I can certainly appreciate newbies–well, anyone “newer” to the material than me–being completely lost within Alan Moore’s densely textured universe.
P.S. to Joe: when is your Variety “Horsemen” review slated to appear online? I’m anxious to know just how bad a movie starring Dennis Quaid can actually be to merit the cold shoulder treatment it received from the distributer of “Midnight Meat Train.”
Yeah, those opening credits were actually the film’s highlight.
“Also, I think that the issues of it being a Hard R would actually be of less significance as a late change-of-pace summer film.”
See I never quite get this “hard R” stuff. Either it’s R or it’s not. A lot of parents wouldn’t care whether it’s “hard” or “soft”.
Those people were were hypothesising that Watchmen could make $100 were clearly misjudging because of their own affections for the source material. As someone who hasn’t read the book my “word of mouth” to friends who asked about it was “it’s good to see on the big screen, but it’s not anything great”. So there ya go.
It’s great. The end.
You also have to be smoking a glass pipe to think this film will have a drop off on Saturday. You have to be out of your mind not to think it will come close to doubling it’s Friday gross. Again; there’s a number, it will make that number, and nothing David Poland or his boy Friday can put on their little website can change that number.
Bravo to Synder and Company. I thought the film was unique and has such savvy political cultural referents. WATCHMEN brings back a good ol’ fashioned fear of nuclear war back to where it should be: in front of us. It’s silly to count beans since this isn’t designed to be sequelized.
And yes, Jackie Earle Haley = Best Actor nom.
The main reason Jonas will lose screens next Friday is not the desire to bring Coraline back, but rather Disney trying to free up more screens for Race to Witch Mountain, which, sad to say, is their first shot of a $20m dollar opening this year.
How do you figure that, IO? Has a movie of this genre ever doubled it’s opening day?
Oh, christian just reminded me of one of the worst parts of the movie: Nixon. Ugh.
I think some here need to re-read Dave’s post. He’s right to single Robinov as the force behind this film. Good or bad, he’s tried to make himself the Avi Arad of DC and without him Snyder would have had to compromise. Which, IMO, he should have.
The problem this movie had, from the first trailer, was Snyder’s placement as equal to material. All of us saw the “Visionary” tag and said “WTF is with that”. I assumed it was a contractual thing, but in hindsight it seems obvious that WB really see him as such. He got as close to final cut as one could hope without a diagnosis of hyper-myopia. It was his cast, his script, etc…on top of that, WB felt the first weekend in March was now his date, which is bordering delusional considering it wasn’t “graphic novel” loving geeks that put 300 over, but the scores of high school and college jocks made Fast&Furious a franchise.
I was convinced that there was so little going on it would hit 70, easy. But rating and length aside, (NickF is very correct to assert length v demand is being met), I honestly believe we’re witnessing the first big movie to be economic collateral damage. People have a weightier choice than usual to make now, and piss around cash that existed two years ago no longer exists for about 10% of the population, especially in the denser markets.
I think we’re going to see a number of titles fall short this summer. If it’s a questionable draw, studios should openly lower expectations by about 10Mil and continue that sliding scale based on how bad things get. I hope, truly hope, WB has not overestimated global sales. I really don’t want to see a bunch of white-collars who had nada to do with this project get canned because management was all green-eyed over Marvel.
WB needs to show some clarity. Green Lantern with Campbell is a smart move. IMO, Snyder owes WB so I’d suggest he takes over Wonder Woman at an agreeable budget while making Sucker Punch. If he says no, then I think the budget for SP should be refrained.
KRISTEN STEWART FOR WONDER WOMAN.
Martin S, make it happen.
Martin: this movie will make it’s money. It might take 30 years, but it will make money.
K: It’s on the most screens ever for a R-rated movie. The large screen count alone almost guarantees it will not lose a show due to it’s length. You also have to take into a count that everything usually goes up on Saturday as Poland has been prone to show us over the years. So it’s damn possible this movie comes close to doubling it’s Friday take. Damn close. Stating otherwise is kinda of silly.
I also have to disagree with you on Nixon. Not only does he capture the Nixon in the book. He captures all the vulgarities of a man, whose employees worked for another president, and became even more vulgar in their old age. Nixon freaked me out. The thought of him being in office for 20 years, easily represents one of the scariest thoughts put on paper, screenplay, and on film.
Lex: I can jump over K-stew and I am 6’3″. That’s how short she is. So, no, she cannot be Wonder Woman, but there are a couple who can. WB just has to figure out if they want a WOMAN or a GIRL to play the part.
I wasn’t hot on Nixon, but it seemed more like an Osamu Tezuka caricature.
But how about that Jeffrey Dean Morgan…wow.
“Watchmen” is gonna fall short of projections. All the fanboys went Thursday midnight and Friday.
At one suburban AMC megaplex this afternoon there was plenty of parking available and NONE of the shows sold out. Usually on a major release you have to go round and round at this AMC to get a decent parking spot.
For the record, Paramount has “Watchmen” overseas and opened it day/date whenever possible.
Since it might get lost in the shuffle in elsethread, I wanted to taunt THE SMOKE MONSTER again (and apparently Christian) by pointing out that without the escalating sense of mob-mentality paranoia and panid in NYC, the movie felt dislocated and hermetic… even generic.
Without all the riots and crazed civilians, the “villain’s” plan underwhelms.
Wow. So the parking lots in New Jersey matter? How is that now? The parking lot at all the local Memphis theatres were packaged, and everyone there loves some OSCAR REFERENCING! Did you know OSCAR AWARD WINNING SONY IMAGEWORKS worked on this film? You didn’t? Now you know.
Also; this movie is an event film. What happens with event films? Some people stay home to avoid crowds. Next week will have a drop-off, but it should not be (hopefully) a F13 drop-off.
Lex: the villain had a reason for doing what he was doing. Did you notice who paid to fix everything? That’s not generic. That’s prescient.
Generic? Really? Come on. Try harder.
There are so many odd comments in that reply that I’m just going to leave it be.
Dude, next week TONY GOLDWYN is waiting with his fistful of bad GNR covers to microwave Doc Manhattan’s ass right after he gets done with Krug’s head.
“P.S. to Joe: when is your Variety “Horsemen” review slated to appear online? I’m anxious to know just how bad a movie starring Dennis Quaid can actually be to merit the cold shoulder treatment it received from the distributer of “Midnight Meat Train.””
Believe it or not: Horsemen didn’t open in Houston. And, yes, I checked because Variety asked. A shame, because I, too, was curious, being a Dennis Quaid fan. And because when I interviewed him two years ago, he was into filming this, and seemed pleased with what he was doing.
Horsemen piqued my interest because I still can’t fathom how anyone could cast Ziyi Zhang in an english language horror flick. Honestly.
Lex: it’s a film you and I want to see, but that may be the end of it.
K: stop fucking being snarky to me. I swear to god. I have no idea how you people work, but how you work with that stuff right there. Sucks. It sucks. THE END.
I’m not sure I would be so quick to applaud a willingness to throw money at an idea.
This will be the year of Watchmen and Star Trek and Terminator Savation and GI Joe and Inglorious Basterds and Where The Wild Things Are and Avatar. And at the end, we will scoreboard it and see whether throwing money at an idea and a filmmaker who the studio likes works.
Okay, IO, I’ll let you know what I thought was so odd about your comment. Why would people staying home on opening weekend affect this movie so much more than any other event movie that falls 50% in it’s second week? Every movie released these days on a lot of screens has a second week drop and only something like 3 major releases have had an 80%, right? That’s a large margin of error you’re working with there. If 50% is respectable for a movie of this kind and 80% is terrible for any movie of any kind, so to say “Next week will have a drop-off, but it should not be (hopefully) a F13 drop-off” seems a bit like saying there’ll still be air to breathe next week. Doesn’t really change anything. why do you think this title in particular – one that falls into niche territory and one that isn’t exactly getting stellar word of mouth – will overcome it all and have a good second week drop? It may very well have one, but what if it falls 70%?
And, for that matter, wouldn’t a disappointing opening weekend (which it seems inevitable that some people will paint it as no matter the maths) make the likelihood of a big second week drop even more plausible since bad press can mean people will decide to not go.
IO: The turnout has exposed “Watchmen” as a fanboy flick. Besides it was in the 60’s today in New Jersey, less than a week after the Garden State got 6 inches of snow.
My part of New Jersey has a broad mix of theaters — 6 chains plus indies. Memphis has one uber-dominant chain and one smaller chain.
“See I never quite get this ‘hard R’ stuff. Either it’s R or it’s not. A lot of parents wouldn’t care whether it’s ‘hard’ or ‘soft’.”
A lot of people don’t care about reading the fine print on things too. When movies like Frost/Nixon, Grizzly Man, The Station Agent, and other tamer than hell films get an R rating thanks to the oversensitivity of the MPAA when it comes to things like the f-word or drug paraphenalia, then it seems more than fair to say that there is such a thing in the US as a distinction between a hard R and a soft R.
There is a distinction, yes, but do many people really care outside of what the little box on the poster says?
But then when stuff like Whale Rider and Amelie get Rs and The Dark Knight or Mr and Mrs Smith get PG-13? They’re whoring out their ratings system to the highest bidder, basically.
Whale Rider was PG-13, only because a kid smoked in it. But that was still a stupid rating for a movie like that.
Honestly now – isn’t one of the reasons the numbers for “Watchmen” are being scrutinized so closely because people just want to shove a disappointing outcome in the face of every foaming-at-the-mouth “fanboy” who cannot and will not accept any chance that the movie has even the smallest of flaws and wasn’t THE cinematic cultural event of the decade they thought it would be?
One almost forgets the basic fact that, financially successful or not, artistically successful or not, this movie deserves a basic amount of respect for existing on its own terms with little apparent compromise in the sense of things like casting “bankable” actors, or watering down the complications of the plotline beyond recognition. If “Watchmen”, in the final analysis, missed the target it was aiming at, at least it aimed for a target almost nobody else is shooting for.
“There is a distinction, yes, but do many people really care outside of what the little box on the poster says?”
They SHOULD care, since something that was otherwise harmless but had a couple of f-words in it can get stamped with an R rating while some studio pic that should’ve got rated R skates by with a PG-13. Then again, we’re talking about people, which as a collective noun often enough has a collective IQ that Forrest Gump could probably find the square root for in his sleep.
Martin S, what would you have had Snyder compromise on? I don’t know why he should have…we don’t get enough movies that are uncompromised.
And KK, parents may not care about the hard R until they’re escorting their kid out of the theater after the scene of a child eaten by dogs and the guy getting a cleaver in his face about six times. THEN they care!
This was a pretty hard R – surprising amounts of gore, a fairly ludicrous and unnecessary amount of humping, and yes, that blue penis, are going to have parents upset.
Now that I’ve seen it, I’m sure it’ll have a hefty second-weekend dropoff and my guess for final domestic gross is something in the $160-170m range.
WTF? I could care less what happens to Warners because of Watchmen. But Allowing Barry Lyndon to be cropped from 1.66:1 to 16:9 is some fucked up shit. Fuckers must pay: http://www.amazon.com/Barry-Lyndon/dp/B000MQPKVG/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&s=digital-video&qid=1236486296&sr=8-16
I should add, I didn’t have a problem with the gore or the blue penis (I’d say even mentioning it shows that you have issues) but the bare-butt humping just struck me as very silly. Patrick Wilson has a nice butt, I guess, but why do I need to see it in action?
Again… the idea of non-celebrity casting… about money, not ideology. If it could have been Clooney as The Comedian, Katherine Heigl as Laurie, Pitt as Ozymandias, Depp as Dr Manahattan, and Nick Cage as Dan without the movie’s budget doubling, WB’s would have forced the issue in a second. But you can’t.
Let’s not be too naive. They would have killed to have just Pitt and Clooney as insurance on this project.
There is a reason why Downey and Norton starred in the two Marbel films last year… and why Batman and Superman arem’t gross point participants in his those films… and why Transformers was built around non-gross players… etc, etc, etc.
And on The Hard R… if you don’t care about under 12s, the Hard R distinction means nothing. But when parents start hearing about blue penises and a rape and (exaggeratedly) ultra-violence, some will actually say, “No” to the kids. Maybe it’s only 5% of the potential audience that is desperate to see the film, but every percent counts.
David — does Katherine Heigl really affect the box office, you think?
Maybe briefly in the wake of Knocked Up. But still?
“I’m not sure I would be so quick to applaud a willingness to throw money at an idea.”
David, I so very, very glad you were not at any studio in any decision-making capacity during the ’60s and ’70s. Come to think of it, I’m glad you’re on the sidelines now, too. And before you get huffy, remember: Already, it looks like Watchmen was a smarter business move than Speed Racer.
BTW: I think you failed to complete your thought here:
“And at the end, we will scoreboard it and see whether throwing money at an idea and a filmmaker who the studio likes.”
“If it could have been Clooney as The Comedian, Katherine Heigl as Laurie, Pitt as Ozymandias, Depp as Dr Manahattan, and Nick Cage as Dan without the movie’s budget doubling, WB’s would have forced the issue in a second. But you can’t.”
Wow – the idea of Clooney playing The Comedian is actually fascinating the hell out of me right now. I can really picture how perfectly it would have played off of his usual on-screen (and off-screen) persona.
Maybe (or probably) the idea of hiring non-stars was all financially motivated, but then you still have a case here of necessity being the mother of inventive casting. Using Haley instead of a bigger star for Rorschach was a brilliant move.
Matro right you are, but I always remember Whale Rider as being rated one rating too high. I just got the actual ratings wrong. My bad. Oops.
Watchmen with Clooney/Pitt/et al would have cost more than the extra amount they would have made at the box office, surely. We’ve seen it proven again and again that there’s only so much box office a huge star-laden cast can achieve before you have to think about the actual movie itself.
BTW, does anybody else think Malin Akerman looks like somebody else? I’m thinking Kate Bosworth, but I’m not quite sure. She looks exactly like someone who I just can’t put my finger on…
As the classicists like to joke, “The Homeric poems were not written by Homer, but by someone else with the same name.”
Camel, probably just your mind playing one of those tricks our minds play on us from time to time. I know what you mean though. You’ll think, “Hey, that guy looks just like what’s his name!” Except you’ll never put a name to that imaginary face because it’s all in your head. The resemblance is never quite exact enough to make the match. I’m sure the psychologists have a name for the phenomenon. It’s just like that other one I can’t remember either.
Hi Kam, hope you recovered from your ending-up-in-a-den ordeal.
Ackerman with dark hair has the look of a Very young Valerie Perrine, with bleached blong hair and a radiance moisturizer, a less porcelain Bosworth, and with her hair darker as it was in yesteryear with bangs, a smirky young Kristen Dunst.
blong…I mean blonde! blong = stoned blonde
which might not be far off the mark from the appearance of some of the photo ops.
Unleash the temple guardian!
“Okay, IO, I’ll let you know what I thought was so odd about your comment. Why would people staying home on opening weekend effect this movie so much more than any other event movie that falls 50% in it’s second week?”
It’s called perception. I have no idea how it works in your part of the world, but up above you where it’s soon to be Spring. There are people — many in this day and age — that stay away from opening weekends of EVENT FILMS. This is seen by many as a EVENT FILM. So some may have stayed away. These things happen. That’s this point. UNLEASH MORE MONSTER!
“Every movie released these days on a lot of screens has a second week drop and only something like 3 major releases have had an 80%, right? That’s a large margin of error you’re working with there. If 50% is respectable for a movie of this kind and 80% is terrible for any movie of any kind, so to say ‘Next week will have a drop-off, but it should not be (hopefully) a F13 drop-off’ seems a bit like saying there will be air to breathe next week.”
This paragraph right here will be a testament as to why I have never nor will ever like discussing anything with you.
You come to a blog that discusses the business end of movies. We just had a ridiculously huge drop-off for Friday the 13th. You were here. You discussed it, but you make an insulting analogy about this point? Really? How absolutely EVERYFREAKINDAY towards me of you.
I am simply stating that next week should not be a disaster in the way some may take it to be. You thinking whatever you think of me, decided to attack me, then actually thinking my point through. Yeah; I got suspened. Yeah, that’s totally fair.
“Doesn’t really change anything. why do you think this title in particular – one that falls into niche territory and one that isn’t exactly getting stellar word of mouth…”
1) THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A NICHE. It simply does not exist. Few statements has shown Poland to be more out of touch, then his entire NICHE POST a week back.
The reason why there is not niche: we are way too connected. We have youtube, we have social networking, and it’s too easy for something to blow up into the mainstream. When it should only belong to one group. This works with Twilight as well. So stating a failed point by Poland. Does not exactly make for a strong argument.
2) What bad word of mouth? The bad word of mouth coming from people that do not like to think too hard? Oh goodness! THE THINKIN MAKES THEM THERE BRAIN’S HURT! Sorry. Not buying it, and even IKFP got bad word of mouth. It still some how made over 100m. It’s all subjective, but I know where your loyalties lay. So do not toy with me.
“- will overcome it all and have a good second week drop? It may very well have one, but what if it falls 70%?”
What if you actually did not have an agenda? Huh? Wouldnt that be great?
“And, for that matter, wouldn’t a disappointing opening weekend (which it seems inevitable that some people will paint it as no matter the maths) make the likelihood of a big second week drop even more plausible since bad press can mean people will decide to not go.”
Again: it’s Saturday and Sunday should be as good or better than Friday. Which still adds to as much as 300. If you want to side with Poland, the state you are with Poland. The math simply does not add up for that side.
So you think it’s nothing special. I feel the same way about you as a poster. Isn’t life grand?
Just in case Kamel gets offended: it’s nothing personal Kamel. I just wanted to respond to your snark with my snark, and have a snark off. WOO!!!
http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/5-second-movies/5226-watchmen-benzaie
Joe… this might explain why you respond the way you often do.
You don’t seem to be interested in anything I write except as a platform from which you can tell me that I am inferior to you in some way. It’s boring, man. Wow… another fucking reference to Speed Racer and 21. How insightful!
Of course, you have no interest in really making your argument, as if you truly think I would run a studio by somehow withholding money from artists with ambition – which is not remotely in what I wrote – than you would have to support the idea of making Speed Racer, even if it failed completely.
But you aren’t very interested in making a coherent argument if you think you can somehow “beat” me.
Joe… babe… we aren’t in competition. Never have been. Never will be. Move along.
Is every time a studio lets filmmakers do what they want with virtually unlimted budgets a good thing?
The job of a great studio head is to create an opportunity for the very best people he/she can find to work for the studio. But it is also to hold them to a level of responsible spending that is comensurate with potential returns. It is also to risk. It is also to try to find some things that are as risk-free as possible.
You bring up the 60s and 70s… but you forget that just about none of the movies that any of us cherish from that period (I leave room for the passions some people hold for the giant flicks that killed the studios) were made for outrageous sums of money… which is my point about Watchmen.
Moreover, the studios, even after the fall, operated on a very different revenue model than the studios today. The Godfather cost $6 million and generated almost $250 million in theatrical. Watchmen is a production and marketing investment of well over $250 million. It was not funded as a risky art film. It was not Bob Evans risking it all on Francis Coppola.
Or maybe you believe that Alan Horn really loved Lady In The Water in a way that Disney just didn’t and that M. Night Shyamalan found a place that truly understood him… for one movie.
Or maybe you can get the simple reality that Night was a good piece of business for Horn, so Horn made him feel like he was loved… when he was just what seemed to be a cash cow suddenly on the market.
I get this thinking with some of the young ones in here… but geez, Joe… you’re not a naive kid.
On one level, it’s great that John Lesher greenlit a bunch of films with budgets that no one else was willing to cough up that turned into very strong art films. And it’s not so great that dozens and dozens of people have been fired from Paramount and the arthouse formerly known as Paramount Vantage because he couldn’t get those projects through production and marketing in a way that didn’t lose well over $100 million.
You want to make the argument that Zack Snyder should have been allowed to produce a 3 hour and 15 minute Watchmen that would become a 2 hour 45 minute release (and, at least in his hopefulness, a second 3:15 release later this spring… which I suspect will go where the re-release of the director’s cut of Grindhouse went), the opportunity costs of which have kept other filmmakers from being funded at WB and, if it loses money, will cost jobs and funding for other films? Great. Make that argument. It’s stupid, but it’s yours to make.
But I think you know better. You just get so excited at the prospect of “getting” me that you can’t contain yourself and you lose a rational train of thought.
‘BTW, does anybody else think Malin Akerman looks like somebody else? I’m thinking Kate Bosworth, but I’m not quite sure. She looks exactly like someone who I just can’t put my finger on…’
kam, i haven’t been able to watch ‘watchmen’ yet so i’m out of the loop, but at times – such as in this promo photo – akerman is a dead ringer for xena
http://i363.photobucket.com/albums/oo78/leahnzwgtn/watchmen-review-2.jpg
“You want to make the argument that Zack Snyder should have been allowed to produce a 3 hour and 15 minute Watchmen that would become a 2 hour 45 minute release (and, at least in his hopefulness, a second 3:15 release later this spring… which I suspect will go where the re-release of the director’s cut of Grindhouse went), the opportunity costs of which have kept other filmmakers from being funded at WB and, if it loses money, will cost jobs and funding for other films? Great. Make that argument. It’s stupid, but it’s yours to make.”
I just want to get this right. You are stating Warners should have never funded this the longer cut of the film which exist because it would be prohibitive to funding other directors?
I get the cut of your jib, but not the glide of your Clyde. This is Warners. Again: this is Warners. If any studio has the fuck you money for a prestige comic-book film. It’s Warners.
So I cannot see where they would be limited on funding other directors. When Warners seems to be in TENT-POLE land, and have very little uses for films like an Indian Kid fighting poverty and dancing poorly. Does S.Millionaire not negate this point of your argument?
I also do not get what’s so wrong with the longer cut being made, when all you have to do is multiple 500,000 but 30. There will be that many people buying that DVD/BD. So again; I do not get the point of your argument.
I get studios should save money should spread it around, but we read what SJR posted the other day. If the studios are indeed recycling crap. Why not take a flyer on another comic-book film, that carries pretige with it?
I just do not get what you are aiming at David. Nor do I understand why Joe is pissing you off with making an assertion that will pay off for Warners around September of this year.
“Not buying it, and even IKFP got bad word of mouth.”
I give up. What the hell is IKFP? Some kind of Slumdog Millionaire reference?
The funny thing about you, IO, is that you are so proud of how much you don’t understand. And thus, you choose to make it personal.
I am not writing – nor do I think I am writing – the bible here. Kami and everyone else is completely capable of agreeing or disagreeing with me without being on my side or not on my side.
If Watchmen does $70 million this weekend, we will all agree that you saw what virtually no one who actually knows anything about the business sees. And if it doesn’t, I hope you will take the hint and take it down a few notches. This doesn’t have to be pro wrestling to be interesting.
IKFP = “Indian Kid Fighting Poverty”? Really Jesus Christ, an inscrutable acronym for an obscure nickname…what a NICHE thing to do…
IO – Warners just laid off 300 people.
Warners talked Time-Warner into shutting down New Line and firing more than 100 people there.
Are you paying attention to reality? At all?
I really mean it. I know you are passionate about this film and the genre. But if you want to be taken seriously, you need to be willing to understand that no studio is the US Government, printing more money to cover their debts.
I hear you… you think Watchmen will end up making money. We’ll see. But if it doesn’t, there is a price… and it has little to do with this blog or my ego or the reality of niches that you are in such odd, old-school denial about.
“at least in his hopefulness, a second 3:15 release later this spring… which I suspect will go where the re-release of the director’s cut of Grindhouse went”
You mean nowhere?
Technically, though, the director’s cut of “Grindhouse” ended up divided into two separate director’s cuts for its halves on DVD. And the collected version is supposedly still coming — it’s out in Japan if one is really hardcore.
No, the director’s cut of Watchmen will go where the director’s cuts of Peter Jackson movies go. Onto DVD, where some will care (LOTR) and some won’t (Kong).
I look forward to the Black Freighter cut — it’s a daring choice, and we’ll see if it pays off.
But IO, Watchmen isn’t the first event (or, EVENT: THE MUSICAL!!!) movie to ever be made and I’m just not understanding where you’re pulling all these extra people out from who are waiting until after opening weekend to go see it. What made them suddenly decide that Watchmen was the movie that they’ll wait an extra week for (especially when, as others have said, audiences have been starved of this genre for a while now) when there are a lot of examples of these same sort of EVENT movies dropping anywhere from 50%-70%, even with exceptional word of mouth and reviews, in their second week. They are event films because people rush to see them on opening weekend, not because they’re waiting to see what others have to say. They’re an “EVENT” so people can discuss them on Monday at work or school instead of saying “I’m waiting for the crowds to die down.”
An 80% fall is incredibly unlikely – Friday the 13th was a spectacular circumstance as its opening weekend had two important dates so I don’t see Watchmen following suit – but so is anything above 50%.
I’ll give you that maybe some were waiting because it was just an unknown property to a lot of circles, but word of mouth is not going to be anywhere near Dark Knight or Iron Man levels, two movies that fell 52 and 48 per cent respectively in their second weeks. Or even, I’d hazard a guess, 300, which fell 53%.
If the box office ends up under $60mil it will be seen as disappointing and will be written up as such. And, my question is, has there ever been an EVENT movie that disappointed on opening weekend, yet rebounded? Batman Begins could be described as such I guess, but that’s about it.
As Dave said, if it turns out that Watchmen somehow makes $40m+ on Saturday and it’s legs prove better than average then hats off to you, and if it does do that then that’ll surely be the first time in history a movie has rebounded like that, surely, especially outside of summer/christmas weeks. But… really. I can’t see it. And it’s not because I “do not like to think too hard”.
Although, on that point, there are a lot of people who don’t like to think too hard. I never see walk outs from these sort of movies, but on Friday night there were at least 20, probably 30, of them. And aren’t we routinely saying moviegoers are stupid? Why else for half the movies that become hits? And, fwiw, Slumdog got incredibly stellar word of mouth so I’m not sure why you’re bringing that movie into the conversation.
NFink is reporting an 18.7m Saturday for Watchman. Ouch. Projected to be a $55m weekend. Unless this thing has legs like TDK, $200m is out the window, with the worst case scenario being a Hulk/Fantastic Four type performance.
You can’t discount those summer weekdays that David spoke of to boost those box office dollars. Summertime and Christmas to New Years are golden where you get weekend like numbers during the week. Of course hindsight is 20/20, but trying to replicate 300’s success, while not an entirely insane idea, was trying to catch lightning in a bottle, twice. Also I’m not hearing the fantastic word of mouth that this needs to prevent a 50-60% drop off next weekend.
Sorry IO, but sometimes you need to separate your passion for a movie from your analysis of its box office prospects. You were right about TDK, but it looks like you’re wrong about Watchmen. Life goes on.
Well 300 fell on it’s first Saturday too if I’m not mistaken.
You all talk as if box office performance is the only way to measure the success of a movie, which is incredibly stupid. Really.
yeah guys, stop talking about box office in a thread about box office
Considering this is a movie business blog more than anything I think it’s highly appropriate to discuss box office performance and how it relates to the wider scheme of things. Watchman‘s disappointment at the box office, along with the hit/miss ratio from the list of movies Dave provided earlier, will help determine whether this sort of endeavour will continue to happen or if “visionary” directors will have to learn to become visionary via studio talking heads.
Besides, people have been discussing the merits of the movie on a pure filmmaking level just not necessarily on this entry.
I say “disappointment” in that it will be probably be seen as disappointing, purely because many box office prognosticators had fallen for the fanboy illusion/delusion. And the perceived negativity will seep on down into general thought.
“Did you see Watchmen?”
“Didn’t that flop? I don’t think I’ll bother. The kids want to see Monsters vs Aliens, we’ll see that.”
etc.
David: “Wow… another fucking reference to Speed Racer and 21. How insightful!”
Er, David…. I don’t really see any reference to 21 in my posting. Seriously. Nothing. Nada. Bupkis. I think I may have to back away for a little bit, because you seem to be getting seriously delusional. Are you going to start complaining about the missing strawberries next? Sheesh.
Perm – Martin S, what would you have had Snyder compromise on?
BP – Snyder ran into a self-imposed issue. He had a choice to play into the violence or break away. By choosing the former he made a conscious decision that if he was going to part ways with the holy novel it would be by making it more exploitive.
So in a sprawling, post-modern, anachronistic, meta-study starring nihilistic characters played by unknowns in an extra-long film…slap them with a blue dong. A man’s ass. Ultra-violence.
It works for some material, like History of Violence, because the storyline is straight forward and the visceral is at the heart of the matter. For the Watchmen book, it grounded reality because of what was being portrayed in other books in the mid-1980’s. But a Watchmen movie is competing against all movies, unlike a comic which has been insulated from other genres for decades. In other words, Watchmen Comic was violent for a 1980’s superhero book, but put it next to an EC horror comic from the 50’s and its tame. Watchmen Movie does not have that luxury.
So Snyder unintentionally gave his critics, (paid and otherwise), an out from the complexity. Why he did this, I’m not sure. Maybe they knew what was coming with TDK. Maybe he was told violence is part of his calling card, like Shyamalan and the twist ending. Maybe it was all the fanboy “this better be R” bullshit that’s gone on for years while the PG13 line has become foggier than ever.
This isn’t a prude issue, FWIW. We’re talking about adapting what has been considering sacrosanct because of how heady the material still is.
Cult movies made from cult novels need to be made on shoestring budgets. There’s something about taking underground material and blowing it up with giant studio-size productions that defeats the purpose.
A Clockwork Orange and Transpotting got that right. And though I like Fight Club, I’d have to put it alongside Watchmen as a movie that’s too polished and bloated for its own good.
Poland – Again… the idea of non-celebrity casting… about money, not ideology. If it could have been Clooney as The Comedian, Katherine Heigl as Laurie, Pitt as Ozymandias, Depp as Dr Manahattan, and Nick Cage as Dan without the movie’s budget doubling, WB’s would have forced the issue in a second. But you can’t.
I’m not sure about that. Every production before Snyder had one star in orbit. He was the first to have no above-title players and his argument was 300. WB was adamant to have at least one name in Batman and Superman. I think Snyder had the track record to go zero, otherwise, he would have to concede on some point such as rating or length. In the very early days name were still be thrown about, like Butler, but when he officially came on board, it stopped.
man. this conversation is everything wrong with the web.
Dave,you can take yourself off the list of critics. You’re not a film critic. You’re a box office analyst who occasionally writes smack pieces about Finke.
Your non video output has become morbidly depressing and you’re becoming as big of a downer as Finke.
I realize criticism is about like and dislike, but as you admit, you’ve reviewed 1 film in 09.
There’s no love in your recent output. Do you still enjoy movies? Is there anything about 2009 that generates an ounce of enthusiasm?
IO – “If any studio has the fuck you money for a prestige comic-book film. It’s Warners.”
They really don’t. If Legendary doesn’t foot half the bill then the rest is coming from a billion dollar Abu Dhabi fund. I know you’re thinking about the TDK money, but that gets split with Legendary, who IIRC, has a deal saying that WB will incur the losses. If that’s right, then TDK covered Superman. I’m not 100% sure.
It looks as if we’re seeing Hulk-levels, which means a 70% drop next week. This is really a victim of bad timing in every way possible.
Since you’re such an objective viewer of the numbers, David, tell us, what was the typical opening for a big R-rated movie before 300 broke that mold? Anyone? Anyone? Here’s a hint-it sure wasn’t 70 million.
Thinking Warner Brothers was counting on lighting striking twice and Watchmen hitting 300 numbers for this to turn out fine is delusional. Especially with a 2hour 40 minute film, anything over 50 is great for a movie like this. 70 million would be even better! but give me a break, that was pushed by people like you looking for your know-it-all stance to be justified.
Anghus, judging from the number of comments lately, I’d say Poland is doing something right. I’m with you that a lot of entries around here are depressing. But this one I happen to agree with. Watchmen will not be a Dark Knight or even a Fantastic 4 profitwise. I think it’s a decent movie that’s smarter than a lot of what passes for entertainment these days. But it’s also not a 4 quadrant film, and will be at best a breakeven prospect financially. I can respect the risk taken with it, but the fact of the matter is that it should have been made cheaper. What made this film good was the source material, not the directing or the acting. WB hedged their bets with a so-so director that’s still learning his trade, and a crew of actors no one has ever heard of. On a budget of a large summer extravaganza. Sure, they can afford to lose some thanks to TDK, but that doesn’t make this a well thought out production.
still ruminating on Watchmen but I think I would agree with Martin S on the “play into violence” issue. The selection of that to expand upon at the expense of the complexity that existed in the wonderful Watchmen issues, esp the extensive cuts of sexual and otherwise violence was playing to the lowest common denominator.
Many things good about it, but this won;t play well to the average person. It will get less money than even 300 I bet.
V for Vendetta the movie was different than the graphic, but I didn;t feel like it lost the spirit of the text at all, I loved it. Can’t say that for this adaptation of the other Moore magnum opus.
Winston – it’s more than 300 that made 70 the barometer. The bar for superhero movies has been perpetually high for sometime. Dave was down on Iron Man and was wrong. He was ambivalent about TDK’s numbers and it did huge. IO has made this point again and again. Watchmen was the real test as to where the audience is; do they want superhero films in general or do they want action/adventure films in the guise of superhero movies. Hit 70, it’s the former and we’d be hearing about Powers being adapted next week. Fall into the 50’s and we know if the characters are not brands or translatable to another genre, they’re not bankable. And no one shelled out 150Mil to break even.
Martin – I agree. Sincerely – the mirrorverse
martin, i agree, it was a well thought out post, but its a bookened to a bunch of shit talking he’s been doing about the movie for months.
But this bullshit talk of profits and losses is the exact same shit he used to freak out about when other sites did it, this ‘sky is falling’ bullshit. He’s become the very thing he claims to hate.
And when times are tough, people turn to entertainment, and heat’s perspective has become extremely negative and soon he’ll be just another prophet of failure who has no interest in seeing anyone succeed, but rather bask in the warn afterglow of the ashen pile they seem to believe Hollywood has become.
I said it about Finke, and it’s becoming true about Dave.
Is there anything Dave writes that makes me enjoy movies more? Other than some interviews, no.
He’s becoming a curmudgeon.
I don’t agree. Show him a broadway musical with Eddie Murphy and he’ll be a fan from day 1. We’ve all got different tastes in movies, as well as different ideas as to what’s worth a greenlight and what’s not. This is Dave’s blog, and he likes some movies, dislikes other. He thinks some were worth studios spending the ole green, and some were not. The drumbeat I’ve been hearing is different from yours. I’ve been hearing “Studios are spending too much to get the same results” and “People are still going to the movies, not more people, not less, just about the same. Articles that suggest the extremes are bullshit.”
Time to get all fucking RED LANTERN ON HIS ASS! GEOFF JOHNS POWER… ENGAGE!
“The funny thing about you, IO, is that you are so proud of how much you don’t understand. And thus, you choose to make it personal.”
Oh the hell with you. You know why I am a better all around debater than you ever will be? It’s called ATTACKING. If someone hits you with something. You hit them with something bigger. Kamel always responds to me in a disrespectful way. Even if he agrees with me. He’s disrespectful.
You on the other hand are giving me shit for not being omniscient. Thanks David. Unlike you; I do not go around the net acting like I am the JESUS H. FUCKING CHRIST OF ALL ENTERTAINMENT BLOGGERS!
“I am not writing – nor do I think I am writing – the bible here.”
READ THE ABOVE REFERENCE TO SEE HOW WRONG THIS SENTENCE IS ON DAVID’S PART.
“Kami and everyone else is completely capable of agreeing or disagreeing with me without being on my side or not on my side.”
Kami took your side — the side that Watchmen is nothing much and will not make much — and ran with it. He took your side. It is your side because you MAKE IT THIS WAY. You are the one who makes this place a BEAST, you are the one who makes it PERSONAL (read your response to Joe, then ask yourself; “Did IO really deserve to be suspended after I just did to Joe what I accused IO of doing to other people?” I am sorry. You are too damn self-righteous to get this. Move on), and you are the one who is ALWAYS ON THE ATTACK. When you are on the other side of thing. Which is very often because you stopped being a movie critic a while ago, became a film reviewer, and like to pass off your half-assed assumptions as CRITICAL GOLD. When they are just your half-assed assumptions.
“If Watchmen does $70 million this weekend, we will all agree that you saw what virtually no one who actually knows anything about the business sees.”
You mean like TDK being the second highest grossing film ever, Dreamgirls not being nominated for shit, and so on? Dude: you do not know how much more I know or how little I know. You are just responding as if I am a big ol’dummy, and your gold chain wearin’ ass is smarter than me. UT-UH! NO SIR.
“And if it doesn’t, I hope you will take the hint and take it down a few notches. This doesn’t have to be pro wrestling to be interesting.”
It’s more interesting when there’s a fight. Wouldn’t you agree Mr. “I HATE EVERYONE ON THE INTERNET WHO JUST IS NOT LIKE ME BECAUSE I AM SO PIOUS AND THEY ARE SO VAPID! I AM SO AWESOME. I HAVE MY OWN CORNER OF THE NET, I MAKE MORE SENSE THAN PETER BART, AND I CAN CAN USE NIKKI FINKE AS A PUNCHING BAG! I CAN ALSO ATTACK GEEKS BECAUSE GEEK MOVIES REVEAL HOW MUCH OLDER I AM THAN THE WORLD RIGHT NOW” Poland.
Hold on. Poland decided to attack me AGAIN! AGAIN… HE ATTACKED ME and now I ATTACK BACK! GEOFF JOHNS POWER RE-ENAGED!
“IO – Warners just laid off 300 people.”
You do know that we live in the country where businesses decide to cut jobs more than any fiscal option right? You do know this? Why do you think the Redskins cut people, and they make a surplus each year? It’s what businesses in this country do. So laying off people does not always represent what’s really happening with a business.
“Warners talked Time-Warner into shutting down New Line and firing more than 100 people there.
Are you paying attention to reality? At all?”
David Poland: you have made a career of ignoring reality. Your entire online career over the last 10 years is summed up by this: fart noise. The fart noise essentially represents a man who loves mainstream film about as much as a colonoscopy, and has spent close to 10 years going to every film festival imaginable. He even took the time to run one.
There, he watches film after film, that almost 98 percent of the population will never see. Films that he then discusses endlessly on his various websites as if people will ever see them. Reality David? You have no clue what reality is, and this week once again demonstrates how out of touch you are with it.
Again: New Line would be shut down one day. It was bound to happen. Again: laying off people is not a fair and balanced view of any company’s strength or weakness because laying off people usually is a ridiculous reactionary technique used by big business.
“I really mean it. I know you are passionate about this film and the genre. But if you want to be taken seriously, you need to be willing to understand that no studio is the US Government, printing more money to cover their debts.”
Two words for you: FUCKING SPEED RACER! How can you give Warners shit for making Watchmen — a film almost guaranteed to sell more on DVD/BD — and state it’s a RISKY MOVIE. WHEN THIS SAME STUDIO MADE FUCKING SPEED RACER, AND THE MOVIE MADE TWO FUCKING DOLLARS!
God fucking damn it David. This is why you are such a tired bore, and I hope Drew pops you in the chops tomorrow to WAKE YOU UP!
You simply cannot state Watchmen is a risky movie, when making Speed Racer most likely led to 300 people being laid-off. Seriously… you just cannot do it, but you are doing it. Which makes you as much as a bore and a tool as you have become lately.
“I hear you… you think Watchmen will end up making money. We’ll see. But if it doesn’t, there is a price… and it has little to do with this blog or my ego or the reality of niches that you are in such odd, old-school denial about.”
SPEED FUCKING RACER. YOU BLEW IT. THE END.
Mr. S: Superman Returns at least go paid off! HIYOO!!!! I am not referring to TDK as much as I am referring to Potter.
I also cannot see it dropping off 70 percent. That would mean everyone decides to go see a movie where parents brutalize the people who brutalized their daughter. Uh… yeah… 54 maybe 60, but 70 seems bit much.
Bulldog: Poland started the fight, and 18 is fucking low. Again; the number has already been chosen. When Warners announces it tomorrow. Do not be surprised.
Oh yeah: Powers should be a TV, and you do not have to shell out 150m for other great properties. Sort of like everything involving the Luna Brothers. Start production on a freakin THE SWORD movie… RIGHT NOW!
A TV SHOW… fucking lack of edit function. Why preview when EDIT seems much more REASONABLE?
“If Watchmen does $70 million this weekend, we will all agree that you saw what virtually no one who actually knows anything about the business sees. And if it doesn’t, I hope you will take the hint and take it down a few notches.”
Why? Because the bean counters who have been wrong before might be right once? And we are living in truly pathetic days when only 60 million dollars profit opeining weekend is a disaster. THAT is what’s wrong with David and the other bean counters here. You will enable everything you supposedly don’t like about the bidness.
Instead of celebrating “change” too many people here are on the side of these worthless stats and analysis that are as wrong as they are right. And to counter that, be happy the studio had the guts to let WATCHMEN out in a form unsuitable to Happy Meals — and to cast Jacke Earle Haley. Because guess what? We’ll get more bland remakes if WATCHMAN doesn’t make at least a gazillion dollars this weekend.
And if movie profits are up…who’s making money and why are people being fired? I think we know.
Christian: I have been an unmitigated dick to you on more than one occasion. However, I now give you a “I’M NOT WORTHY” bow. Tremendous job sir. Tremendous job.
Winston, you’re right, anything over $50M for an R rated film is great – if this production cost $100M and if the movie experiences drops of only 20%-40%. But this movie cost at least $150M and a good drop on an “event” movie is 50%, which is probably unlikely.
With this opening, and estimating good drops of 50% for every weekend for 10 weeks and if you estimate that that 40% of the DM will be weekly earnings (which is a high estimate for a non summer release); this movie will not get to $150 DM.
Hallick had a good summation of the movie, we should celebrate that it got made in Snyder’s vision with little input from WB. The hope is that if another director wants to do a visionary movie with a non-mainstream idea with no huge stars, that they can and maybe only limited to $100M. I would hope that Watchmen’s BO does not prevent these movies in the future.
well 55.7 M isn;t so good if the movie cost 3 times that. It would have been a better as a low-er budget movie, more gritty and cheaper and I think the fans would have liked that better, I know I would have.
BY their very nature and spirit that they were written in, maybe graphic novels and serials are low budget. I see them that way when I read them–B movie noir material with unknowns.
bean counters would be looking for an excuse to pink slip anyway…as someone said the other day, since 9-11 companies have been doing this unfortunately.
Gritty and dirtier does not work for everything. It probably will make 60, but 60 is not horrible. Wow. It made less than 300 but it’s almost two times as long as 300. It also deals with something a lot less visceral than 300. So, really, we got an awesome Watchmen movie, and it will end up making more money than Speed Racer ever did. Game, set, match to ME! BRUHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
IO: Please excuse my possibly faulty memory, but didn’t you used to be the second biggest booster of Speed Racer on this blog? I mean, even to the point of trying to come up behind me with a steel chair at one point because I made a passing reference to its underwhelming b.o.? What changed your mind?
IOI, when the final numbers are announced in a couple of days, and it doesn’t hit $60m, what is your reaction going to be? I’m assuming you’re going to avoid it and change the subject, like you did with your ‘Saturday will double Friday’s take’ prediction.
The amazing thing about you is your total lack of embarrassment after being repeatedly proven wrong. If you would just apologize every so often and ease off the insane bluster, people would appreciate you more.
Joe: I still love and adore Speed Racer. It’s the best family movie of this entire decade, but it’s also a good club to use on Poland. Who all of a sudden brings up a studio losing jobs in relation to Watchmen. When it’s much more logical to assume, that Speed Racer is more responsible than Watchmen.
This guy wrote; “IOI, when the final numbers are announced in a couple of days, and it doesn’t hit $60m, what is your reaction going to be? I’m assuming you’re going to avoid it and change the subject, like you did with your ‘Saturday will double Friday’s take’ prediction.”
No I will not avoid it. Wow. I was wrong when NOT ONE OF YOU WERE RIGHT ABOUT THE OTHER STUFF I HAVE BEEN RIGHT ABOUT ON THIS BLOG! Wow. Again. Still I am going with 60, and if it’s not 60. It’s not 60. So be it. I still get an awesome fucking Watchmen movie. IN YER FACE McMAHON!
“The amazing thing about you is your total lack of embarrassment after being repeatedly proven wrong.”
My lack of embarrassment towards someone like you? Let me state this to you Jeff: I could give a fuck about you or what you think about me. I could give a fuck. Unlike you, Mr. Chicken shit; I at least make predictions. I at least put myself out there. So, again, I could give a fuck about what you think.
“”If you would just apologize every so often and ease off the insane bluster, people would appreciate you more.”
Are you every going to apologize to me, you punk, for what you have stated about me? Probably not. So again: I could give a fuck about what you think, and the bluster you share on this blog everyday.
The fact that you missed I apologized the other day. Demonstrates you are no better than a fucking troll. You should be bounced.
“Two words for you: FUCKING SPEED RACER!”
That’s three words.
“And we are living in truly pathetic days when only 60 million dollars profit opeining weekend is a disaster.”
“Disaster” is a bit hyperbolic, but when you make a movie that costs upwards of $150mil… well, yeah. And, besides, it’s not like the internet suddenly made movie studios realise that their movies either made profits or losses. It’s just the internet made it easier for people to talk about it. You can bet your ass that the studio isn’t going “well, at least we made a good movie!” in the boardrooms on Monday.
Kamel: you must have missed a lot of jokes growing up down under. I also have a different idea about the Warners boardroom this morning. It goes like this:
EXEC 1: “Did you see how much money the video division made with that fucking motion comic?”
EXEC 13: “Fuck yeah. WE RAKED IT IN on something that cost us 15.67!”
EXEC 4: “15.67? DAMN! I had no idea it was that cheap.”
EXEC 9: “Yeah. We got Todd to do it on flash, and Barney narrated it.”
EXEC 3: “So we made like a shitload of money this weekend?”
EXEC 1: “FUCK YEAH WE DID!”
If you’re referring to my “That’s three words” then that was a joke. Well, it was true, but it was meant to be humourous. If you mean something else then I’m afraid you’ve lost me (yet again).
Maybe Australians just don’t get your American sense of humour. Although to not “get” a sense of humour implies that there must be one there to “get”. Hmmm.
Oh that was funny. You’re funny. You make me laugh, and yes you missed a joke. HA!
I literally have no idea what you are talking about.
Ah, I already miss that all-too-short IO-less period on the blog.
Pretty bad when I have to go to Wells’ blog to get away from the insane ramblings…
Perspective: 60 million dollars for a dense three hour r-rated sex violence intellectual extravaganza is not anywhere near a dead parrot, Jim. And it’s also clear that studio accounting practices are being left out of the dark here. WATCHMEN will make money. Warner Brothers won’t have to bring out the cane and tin cup yet.