Warner Bros. saw a decent return on their oh-so-risky move of spending $150 million on a tentpole superhero film based on a famous graphic novel, their “Watchmen” debuting at number one with a $55.2 million take. Most guessed the heavily promoted event would score $60-$70, so if actuals are lower, WB has gotta hope this thing has legs- with the ad budget and the embarrassing FOX lawsuit guaranteeing them a profit share, they needed “Watchmen” to be a zeitgeist starter, but its likely the gloom and doom didn’t match with the country’s pathetic recession-fueled need for “escapism.” If the thing can’t top next weekend’s “Race To Witch Mountain,” WB has a financial sinkhole on their hands and can only hope to score on its “Bigger Blue Dick Director’s Cut”.
“Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes To Jail” fell to #2 with $8.8 million, collecting $76.5 million over three weekends, easily Perry’s best all-time take. With little movement in the top ten, a couple of staltwarts had a chance to make a dent, “Taken” remaining steady at #3 ($7.5 million), “Slumdog Millionaire” at #4 ($6.9 million) and, stunningly, “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” somehow sneaking back into the top five with $4.2 million. With no other new releases, “Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience” took the biggest drop, losing 77.7% of its audience to fall to #9 with a $2.8 million take, suggesting that tween concert films probably aren’t the profitable subgenre that the “Hannah Montana” monster suggested.
1. “Watchmen”- $55.2 million
2. “Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes To Jail”- $8.8 million
3. “Taken”- $7.5 million
4. “Slumdog Millionaire”- $6.9 million
5. “Paul Blart: Mall Cop”- $4.2 million
6. “He’s Just not That Into You”- $4 million
7. “Coraline”- $3.3 million
8. “Confessions Of A Shopaholic”- $3.1 million
9. “Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience”- $2.8 million
10. “Fired Up”- 2.6 million
*Box-Office mojo updated the “Watchmen” haul, it was actually $55.2 million, not $55.7 million as previously reported.
Yeah! Escapism sucks! Fuck the magical power of film! Forget about being transported to new and unfamiliar lands! Imagination can take a hike! Let’s all wallow!
Please note that my sarcasm does not in any way endorse “Paul Blart, Mall Cop.”
There’s a connection between today’s film “escapism” and the concept of imagination?
touche!
Yeah, I would argue that there is imagination in today’s escapist films.
So, you know, there’s that.
There’s also the fact that people do want to feel good, or at least better, when they go to the theater. Most peoples’ lives aren’t terribly wonderful right now, and if Hollywood can provide that for them, I say, right on.
Taking a condescending, high-and-mighty tone isn’t going to make people feel any better or make movies like “Beverly Hills Chihuahua” any less successful.
Just playing devil’s advocate here.
The only way we can make people stop seeing awful films is making them feel guilty and awful and less than human about it. The devil doesn’t need an advocate in this scenario.
No good movie is depressing. All bad movies are depressing.
“Warner Bros. saw a decent return on their oh-so-risky move of spending $150 million on a tentpole superhero film based on a famous graphic novel, their “Watchmen” debuting at number one with a $55.7 million take.”
Is this sarcastic?
lulz.
Seriously though, I can’t tell.
“The only way we can make people stop seeing awful films is making them feel guilty and awful and less than human about it.”
I hope you’re kidding. That approach is very counter-productive.
Until “intellectual” stops being a negative word in this country, so be it. I’d love to turn around on some unknown person and say, hey, you should see this, but if I recommend “Rififi” to total strangers, no matter how good a job I do of extolling its virtues, they will think I sneezed on them.
I’m guessing that Watchmen will get some decent numbers on a global level (hasn’t been released everywhere yet), so I wouldn’t be too worried if I was WB. Yet.
Hate campaign? I just genuinely disliked the movie. Worst thing I’ve seen so far this year. Gabe is entitled to his sarcasm here. I think $55 million is a very great number, but the fact is, it did underperform.
I don’t care enough to write a piece about it, but they spent about$250 million in total on this thing. It’s going to take a lot to recoup and mark my words when i say this thing will not play internationally. It will not be benjamin button and make all it’s money back overseas (which button completely did).
Watchmen won’t translate to huge numbers globally, watch.
But it’s failure or success is no real concern of our others than hopefully it’ll teach people to make smarter films. That’s all we ever ask.
TDK did it, so did Iron Man. The bar has been set by the genre. Now everyone else has to reach it or fail.
Superhero movies generally underperform internationally.
Also, Paramount gets the overseas numbers, not WB. Wah-waaaah.
I saw ‘Watchmen’. Enjoyed some of it, and was lulled to sleep by others. Zack Snider did a ‘paint by numbers’ approach to this film. Use of secondary colors for tone of movie as done in novel? Check. Panel by panel accuracy with the graphic novel as the scenes in the movie progress? Check. A bigger and more blue penis than the book? Check. Failing to make a statement as an auteur of modern cinema and as a thinking person interpreting a classic piece of modern literature? Priceless.
Watchmen could clearly have used a daring screenwriter who would go for the jugular and say fuck off to the fan boys of comic book shops and make a good ‘movie’ forfilmophiles.
Zack Snider is clearly a skilled director and has a lot of chops when it comes to making a film. That’s why he wants Watchmen virgins to remain Watchmen virgins before the see the film. Like any good performer, he doesn’t want to reveal the source of his material. And boy was he faithful to the comic. Too faithful. If the squid and the island and the psychologicalprofiler’s relationship with his wife can be omitted, why not go full tilt and make a movie that is relevant and resonant to our time.
Bring the movie into the fucking twenty first century. Go for the jugular. George H.W. Bush is still president, we are still in operation Desert Shield/Storm and the Nuclear threat is a unified extremely radical faction of Islam with the Hussein Family of Iraq, The Prime minister of Iran, Saudi Arabia, India, North Korea, China and Pakistan takes the place of the Soviet Nuclear threat.
Transpose the novel to our time and it would have a more potent and virulent film. Would it rile the vile up in comic fans? Sure. but who cares? Art, is supposed to anger. I’ve yet to see someone protest a work of ‘paint by numbers’.