Comments on: WATCHMEN scores $4.5M in Thursday midnight previews!

By: Ken in Irvine

Ken in Irvine — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 08:08:01 +0000

I agree. I did not read the novel before seeing the movie today. Many times, it felt like it was formulating some sort of opinion as if it were trying to make a point or convey a message. Then, it would just drop that and go in a different direction. When it was all over, I wasn't sure what to make of it.

Who was right? Who was wrong? Who was good or bad? Frankly, I couldn't tell.

Was the whole thing a big promotion for moral relativism?

By: SemperFu

SemperFu — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 04:06:37 +0000

Saw it and found the moral message rather muddy. Do the means justify the ends (as most liberals and Marxists seem to believe) or is the final verdict yet to be written? The movie can't seem to make up it's mind.

By: Tennwriter

Tennwriter — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 22:02:06 +0000

I think there is at least a hard-core of fans for this movie, but whether it spreads to general geekdom (I can say that–I'm a geek), or even worse spreads to the general population like some mental Ebola is uncertain.

"Quick! Give me 10 cc's of Spiderman, stat! With the antibodies from his radioactive blood, we can stop this plague!"

Not all comic book movies do well–Catwoman, Incredible Hulk, and Daredevil were Pretty Bad, Astonishingly Bad, and Middling Okay. I was excited for each of them, and disapointed in all. I'm giving a fake gold watch to this movie to avoid actually watching it and hoping it retires soon.

This hardest of the hardcore, is likely to turn out very enthusiastically and so show up in the middle of the night and produce this 'giant' ripple. They've been waiting for this night for twenty years. I hope they enjoy themselves because I can't bring myself to wish harm to such idolization. But does this hyper-enthusiasm transfer to the broader public? Doubtful.

By: jic

jic — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 21:55:44 +0000

Actually, that's more-or-less what I would expect. Most of the people who want to see this have wanted to for a long time, in some cases literally decades. They are going to all try to see it in the first weekend, which is what is driving this huge preview business Steve is reporting, and we will probably see the huge opening weekend that's predicted. We may also see a pretty good second weekend driven by people wanting to see what all the fuss is about. But I'm still unconvinced that Watchmen will have the broad appeal needed to become a Dark Knight or Iron Man-level hit. And with a budget generally said to be around the $150M mark, and all the huge (and presumably expensive) promotional campaign we've been seeing, a huge opening might not be enough.

By: Shannan

Shannan — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 19:47:12 +0000

In my town the local radio station offered up free tickets to the midnight showing of "Watchman" and passes for another movie of their choice for answering a trivia question. The guy who got it right took the generic tickets, but PASSED on the "Watchman". So the on air guy took the next caller and asked if she wanted them. She wanted the generic pass and passed on the "Watchman". He had to take 4 calls before he found an unthrilled taker who then asked if he would be ineligible to call for a while – like if it counted as a win.

I had never heard that happen before. My town. Trend buckers extraordinaire.

By: LoneWolfArcher

LoneWolfArcher — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 18:53:13 +0000

So what is your prediction for the second week % drop? I'll put it at 60%.

By: Bubba

Bubba — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 18:39:49 +0000

Quick FYI, the image is reversed. The bloodstain on the face is supposed to resemble a clock hand approaching midnight.