It will take more than WATCHMEN writer Moore’s curse to keep Zack Snyder’s adaptation from topping $60M!
by Steve MasonWatchmen (Warner Bros) has followed a long and winding road, passing through the hands of some remarkable directors like Terry Gilliam (The Fisher King), Darren Aronofsky (The Wrestler) and Paul Greengrass (United 93), before landing in the lap of the mastermind behind 2004’s stunning re-imagining of Dawn of the Dead and 2007’s March blockbuster 300. From the moment that the first trailer for Zack Snyder’s $120M comic book adaptation made its debut at midnight screenings of The Dark Knight in July, this has been a sure-fire mega-hit. Now, the big screen version of the 1986 graphic novel will be unleashed on Friday.
WATCHMEN writer Alan Moore has reportedly placed a curse on the movie
The original comic was written by Alan Moore and the lead artist was Dave Gibbons. The collaborators have radically different views of Snyder’s film adaptation.The latter has publicly expressed confidence in Snyder. Gibbons reveals to Wired magazine that at one point Joel Silver owned the film rights to Watchmen and that the producer was insistent that Arnold Schwarzenegger should play Dr. Manhattan. (That would have potentially been an unintentional disaster movie.)
Artist Dave Gibbons on the set of Zack Snyder's Watchmen
The artist says although he never had much to do with previous attempts to make the movie “I’ve been quite involved with the Zack Snyder one. I introduced myself to him at the U.K. premier of 300, and right from the very beginning we kind of hit it off, and I really had that gut feeling that he was going to do it properly. And I must say everything that I’ve seen since has only increased my confidence, to the point that I just think it’s a wonderfully fortuitous piece of timing and the right man at the right place at the right time.”
Moore, however, is very different kind of dude. On one hand, his story Watchmen has been named one of the top 100 English language novels ever written by Time Magazine, ranking alongside Harper Lee, John Steinbeck, George Orwell and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Simultaneously, he reportedly considers himself to be a warlock and has placed a curse on Snyder’s movie. The writer tells the LA Times that his philosophy about Hollywood. “It spoon-feeds us, which has the effect of watering down our collective cultural imagination. It is as if we are freshly hatched birds looking up with our mouths open waiting for Hollywood to feed us more regurgitated worms. The Watchmen film sounds like more regurgitated worms. I for one am sick of worms.”
A number of Moore-written comics have made the jump to the big screen, including V for Vendetta (excellent movie), From Hell (a mess), Constantine (more of a mess) and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (complete disaster), and he claims that he has never seen any of them. According to its author, his classic graphic novel Watchmen is “inherently unfilmable.”
It will take all of Moore's warlock powers to keep WATCHMEN from cracking $60M this weekend
So, it is Zack Snyder vs. Alan Moore’s curse. Warlock or not, the industry pre-release tracking is sky high. In surveying my normal studio contacts Wednesday, the lowest prediction I could find was for a $55M opening weekend. One exec at a competing studio thinks that $70M-$75M is “in the bag,” but I’m going with a number a few ticks lower. The 163 minute running time will give the movie fewer showtimes overall and that sort of running time generally hurts late show business. I’m calling for $63M for 3 days.
If that number hits, Watchmen would post the all-time #3 March opening, trailing only Snyder’s 300 ($70.8M) and Ice Age: The Meltdown ($68M). It would also be the all-time fourth-best 1st quarter opening for Hollywood also finishing behind 2004’s The Passion of the Christ ($83.8M).
Curse…Schmurse.
FINAL PREDICTION FOR MARCH 6-8
1. NEW – Watchmen (Warner Bros) – $63M
2. Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail (Lionsgate) – $11.5M
3. Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) – $9M
4. Taken (Fox) – $7M
5. Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience (Disney) – $6.75M
6. He’s Just Not That Into You (Warner Bros) – $4.2M
7. Paul Blart: Mall Cop (Sony) – $3.9M
8. Coraline (Focus) – $3.2M
9. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Diney) – $3.1M
10. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (Fox) – $2.1M
Steve Mason is on Facebook and now also on Twitter.
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
| 
Follow Us on Twitter
Subscribe via RSS
Tips & Feedback
52 Comments
Wow, I don't know…an R-rated, almost three-hour, dark, nihilistic superhero movie featuring Billy Crudup's blue-tinted wang banging the audience right in the face, superheros that aren't very heroic and whom no mainstream audience has ever encountered before? This is going to be a smash? I wonder.
I own the graphic novel and have read it several times over the last twenty years. I suppose I'm part of the target audience, but I won't be going to see it, partially because moviegoing experiences tend to be so obnoxious nowadays.
Anyway, I am curious to know how it does, but my gut says we're looking at Snakes On A Plane 2. Yeah, I know other people said that first, but it's a pretty obvious comparison and occurred to me, too.
"…moviegoing experiences tend to be so obnoxious nowadays."
Get yourself a Mac with a Superdrive and AT LEAST a 23" Cinema HD Display (30" is about a hundred times better), route the sound through a Bryston 3B ST amplifier and a pair of Tannoy near field studio monitors, slip in the DVD, pump up the volume, turn out the lights, and sit no more than three feet from the screen. It will change your entire outlook on life.
Oh, popcorn with freshly melted butter and kosher salt. Can't forget the popcorn.
Capes on a Plane?
It's not just immense, but it's BLUE? I think I"ll pass. Of course some of my friends here in San Francisco will probably merely pass out. And here I thought it was all about a guy who figured out how to put a clock on your wrist. That's probably because the last graphic novel I read starred Woody Woodpecker. Did I just say woodpecker? I'm going to bed now.
I'm all for good violence, but some of the stuff I've heard about this pic makes me uncomfortable. Dogs chewing on a 6 year-old's leg? Superhero rape? Someone having their skull crushed with repeated (and close-up) axe hits? Maybe I've mellowed with age, but if I see it once, I guarantee it'll only be once (and a matinee at that).
- “It spoon-feeds us, which has the effect of watering down our collective cultural imagination. It is as if we are freshly hatched birds looking up with our mouths open waiting for Hollywood to feed us more regurgitated worms. The Watchmen film sounds like more regurgitated worms. I for one am sick of worms.”
As if in his supposedly sophisticated and adult "novel" Moore didn't spoon-feed comic book fans what they expect, i.e. violence and sex. I'll grant that he tried as best he could to take all the thrill out of superhero-dom. Nevertheless, in parodying comic tropes he still abided by his fans' automatic expectations.
Methinks Moore doth protesteth too much.
I can understand his dislike of Warner Bros. and DC, that's natural, but to condemn all movies as a somehow inferior art form to comics sounds like he's straining for something to complain about. And since he pledged to bad mouth and disown any version two decades ago, his disowning now isn't being taken by the audience as any judgment of the film's quality.
Plus his complaints are delivering yards of column space in publications and all over the internet to promote the Watchmen, and he's doing it for FREE!
Why do you think Warner Bros. licensed the merchandise so heavily. It wasn't to make money, that's just gravy, it was to drive him crazy and get him talking and do half the work for them.
I've never had the pleasure of reading Watchmen, it's been touted as the 'Citizen Kane' of comics and I'm sure it's great. I really don't want to go the movies anymore, even for Comic book adaptions. I feel like the comic books have lost their edge. I mostly have read Marvel stuff and Watchmen is a DC production, but that's besides the point. I'd rather read the Graphic Novel. I think I'm becoming a purist. I loved the 90s X-Men comics and it was impossible to get that close to the X-Men on film, it was 'Well, some of this stuff is close. He looks and acts just like Logan, except… he's too tall…. and Australian. Australian's can't play Canadians' That's a fact, people.
Moore's a very talented guy. A little eccentric, but he may have a point here. I mean, who goes to see those Maddea films?
I've read the book several times, but I don't think I'll go to the movie. The violence level is simply too intense for me to take on a big screen. I'll watch the DVD though.
[...] MAR 09: Ah. Alan Moore is a warlock. From the picture on this post he looks like the reincarnation of Rasputin. Either way he’s put a curse on the movie version [...]
As a huge comic fan back in the day, I just recently heard of the Watchmen. I will be sitting this one out. Though I have never seen The Dark Knight either due to the extreme hype leading up to that movie. I am becoming more and more anti-fanfare in my older age.
Mac? What kind of self-respecting conservative owns a Mac?
Even if it does great opening weekend, it could crash and burn come week two, and not come near its budget $$$. And the source material is VERY resistant to sequelizing (if that's a word).
Being a big fan of the source material, I am very excited for the movie. The whole point of the book was deconstruction of the superhero and how would they behave in a credible world. (there is only one true superhero, Dr Manhattan, the rest are average joes in tights) So seeing a different type of hero, in my opinion, would not deter audiences. Its also R rated for a rape scene that occurs in the second chapter. Its a powerful story and I recommend everyone should read it. I think Alan Moore is a great story teller, despite his obscene wierdness, which is probably why he is good at what he does.
But if the movie is too true to the book, it will make the story much less accessible to casual movie goers. Only the fans would really know what is going on. Catering to such a small segment of the movie going public is not a surefire way of success.
one who wants a functioning computer. Its the triumph of the free market.
Didn't you guys read Debbie Schussel's review ? This is a steaming pile of trash and the anticipated cume appears to trump the issues of taste. Hooray for Hollywood ?
At first, I was disinterested on general principal. Then for a little while, I got caught up in the general hype, mostly about Rorshach. Alas, news of the nudity and general depravity have returned me to my original state of disinterest…
It's a cartoon, damn Tim magazine. At a loss what the appeal of more CGI suff without any heroic characters is for most adults, nor why younger kids would sit through 2+ hours of dark drivel.
Rush Limbaugh, amongst others like my blogmates and myself.
Though that does cast some doubt on the "Self-respecting" part, I will admit…
"…Watchmen has been named one of the top 100 English language novels ever written by Time Magazine, ranking alongside Harper Lee, John Steinbeck, George Orwell and F. Scott Fitzgerald."
Okay… wait… WHAT?!
Watchmen ranks with Of Mice and Men? East of Eden? 1984? …What?
I suppose Dave Gibbons illustrations in on par with John Singer Sargent's work? How about Edward Hopper? Or maybe even Rembrandt?
I've read The watchmen. Twice. Trust me, it does not come close to To Kill a Mockingbird.
But then again, this is Time Magazine's opinion, so… you know.
Faithful adaptation? Unwatchable violence? R rating? Infanticide? Rape? See also Snyder's Box Office destroyer 300. None of these "criticicsms" of Watchmen's potential holds any water at all. If it is a good movie, it will sell tix.
300 cost less than half as much to make as Watchmen, and didn't have anywhere near the media blitz behind it that the latter movie does. The reviews make me think that Watchmen is a gigantic piece of fan-service, and I can't see it crossing over to a mainstream audience. I'd expect a big opening weekend, followed by an extremely rapid drop-off. I wouldn't count on it even making a profit.
I have tons of friends that have never read the graphic novel and they are all incredibly psyched to see this film. Don't be too surprised when it makes a heck of a lot of money. And remember, The Dark Knight has already gotten adult audiences primed and ready for dark, serious takes on Superheroes.
the only review that I will take seriously at this point is my own, I will go and see this movie the day it's released and only when it's done will I have an opinion on the movie
'Watchmen' will open huge- maybe beating the $63 mil predicted here. It is limited by it's running time, which will keep it out of the $75mil it could have done. The second week is the key- Hollywood math is dictated by the fall off, so if it does $30mil or less, disappointment abounds and it is headed for a massive DVD market.
However, if it does more that $30 mil- watch out for 'Watchmen'…
Though I have never seen The Dark Knight either due to the extreme hype…
Then you, my friend, are making a collossal mistake
Though I have never seen The Dark Knight either due to the extreme hype…
Then you, my friend, are making a colossal mistake
Moore and King in a unused industrial bathroom, chained to a corpse…
I have to say, that judging only on the two images posted of Alan Moore, my impression of him is that he is a pretentious, self-inflated, poser. …I mean, anyone who'd pose for a photo like that TWICE forces met to suppress my punching reflex.
In my case, one who is a musician.
I also ride motorcycles, so I make the Mac vs. PC argument this way: I'm a motorcyclist, not a biker. As a motorcyclist, I expect my ride to do things like go down twisty sections of macadam with great alacrity and agility – leaning way over and the like – so, as a result, I ride BMW motorcycles, and not Harley-Davidsons. Macs are BMW's and PC' are Harleys.
You didn't like Sin City, did you? LOL!
[...] class=keywordCoraline/strong and Phoebe find comfort within the fantasies offered by the theater It will take more than WATCHMEN writer Moore’s curse to keep Zack Snyder’s adaptation from toppi… – bighollywood.breitbart.com 03/05/2009 Watchmen (Warner Bros) has followed a long and winding [...]
Oh, I SO agree! I'm like LoneWolfArcher, in that I avoid movies that have been hyped to death. In The Dark Knight's case though, it was entirely justified.
Lone, please please, do yourself a favor and see it. It's astounding.
Me for one.
So true.
I haven't seen one pro-W guy defending this malarkey which tells you something. Now I'm a comic book guy so I'd say it doesn't even deserve to be in the top 100 of comic books. The idea of it being in the Top 100 novels is hysterical.
I am definitely a biker/Harley/PC type!
(Though I love BMW and Mercedes vehicles.)
I will eventually. Even though Christian Bale makes me want to vomit with he "better than everyone" attitude.
I will eventually. Even though Christian Bale makes me want to vomit with his "better than everyone" attitude.
300 is also one of the classic great stories like Robin Hood, Camelot, the Crucifixtion, the Exodus. These are stories that many (sometimes hundreds of) generations of readers have judged to be great.
You'd have to be a real maroon to mess up a tale based on…oh…Horatio at the Bridge or Tarzan of the Apes.
Big difference between one of the classic stories and a modern attempt at deconstruction. And a big difference in what audiences like. You have to be a lot better to sell a story based on the fears of cowardly Horatio who ran, or the ignoble wilderness savage who has no idea what it is to be human.
Is it just me or does Alan Moore look like Don Sutherland?
We have both. I see that PC right now, sitting there, cold and gray, the steely, uppity monitor staring blankly at me. It can really cheese me off sometimes. While my friend the Mac here is easy going, warm and just plain pleasant to be around.
Nope, not just you…
I was thinking more along the lines of Grigori Rasputin.
Is that Alan Moore or pictures of Bernadine Dorhn from the 60s?
same attitude as bruce wayne
Oddly, for all the stability hype, I have never used a Mac that hasn't crashed while I've been using it. And it usually crashes when I'm doing stuff like word processing (sometimes Word, sometimes not).
My Vista machine, on the other hand, hasn't crashed since Service Pack 1 came out and the only problems I had on my XP machine were ones I cause myself by dicking around in the registry…
That may be so, but I'll need more than Debbie Schlussel's word for it. The woman is a loon. Go and read the way she responds to civil disagreement from commenters at her site. Lots of blogs have trolls, but they aren't usually the blog's author. In her case, though, she's the troll. It's the most bizarre thing.
[...] Obviously, the reviews are all over the board. Although, there’s no question that the writer of the original Watchmen graphic novel, the enigmatic Alan Moore, hates the movie, it’s just as certain that he has not and will never see it. In fact, he put a curse on the whole project. [...]
[...] Obviously, the reviews are all over the board. Although, there’s no question that the writer of the original Watchmen graphic novel, the enigmatic Alan Moore, hates the movie, it’s just as certain that he has not and will never see it. In fact, he put a curse on the whole project. [...]
Side note: I'm pretty sure that the idea for Constantine was writen by the drunken Irish writer Garth Ennis.
V For Vendetta was utter crap!
It was the most vapid movie I've ever seen – the cinematic manifestation of the leftist and moral relativist axiom "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter."
i lovet his so much!
You must be logged in to post a comment.