It’s Halloween, and that means it’s time to trick-or-treat or attend costume parties or seek out a local haunted house.  But for me, it’s hard to find a better haunted house than my plasma TV.

I was a bit of a fraidy-cat when I was a kid.  I used to sleepwalk after seeing scary movies, or if that didn’t happen, I would awake-walk into my parents’ room for a hug from Mom.   In order to confront that embarrassing—if amusing—childhood demon, I became a bit of a horror buff.  Hopefully my pain is your gain.

Five Movies to Watch This Halloween

“Return of the Living Dead” (1985)
In this “cult classic,” a group of punk rock-loving teens venture out to pick up a friend from his job at a medical supply shop in Louisville, Kentucky.  When a foreman opens up a military drum that was accidentally sent to the shop—which, oh-by-the-way has an UNDEAD BODY IN IT!!—all zombie-hell breaks loose.

The film is genuinely funny, has a couple of good scares, and a rockin’ soundtrack, but it also injected life into the genre because all the zombies run (fast!) and most of them talk.  Like this one:

Doesn’t she look familiar?  Check out this zombie from “The Walking Dead.”

The B-plot, featuring an Army Colonel on a mysterious, tedious, yet seemingly extremely important mission, is tied up brilliantly in the frightening, apocalyptic conclusion.

But what really puts this film over the top is that it features the best zombie of all time, Tarman.  Gruesome, evil, and with just the right amount of camp, the zombie that first exclaimed “BRRAAAAAIIIIINNNNSS!!” before chowing down on the cerebral cortex of some young punk deserves a place in cinematic lore. (more…)

If Zack Snyder has shown us anything with his movies, it’s that the guy has an agenda when it comes to directing that is as follows:

1. Make everything look really cool
2. Other stuff

This is not an attack against Snyder, it’s simply the truth.  Sucker Punch is Snyder’s first movie that isn’t a remake or based on another property, so it seemed like this would be the time for him to really display what he’s all about as an artist.  What we got was a collection of nutty action scenes strung together with a dream-world framing device.  When I wrote about Heavy Metal in HomeVideodrome a couple of weeks ago, a Big Hollywood commenter likened it to Sucker Punch, which is an astute comparison.

Sucker Punch takes place in the sixties, and is about a young girl known as Babydoll (Emily Browning), who has been institutionalized by her evil stepfather after she accidentally kills her sister in an attempt on his life.  Once inside, she enters a fantasy world where the mental asylum becomes a brothel akin to Moulin Rouge, and the various inmates and staff at the hospital fill out the roles of the characters in her head.  Determined to escape, Babydoll does a seductive dance for the entertainment of their male clientele while her inmate pals steal what they need while everyone is distracted.  The audience is never privy to Babydoll’s legendary dance.  Instead we get another level of fantasy.  Each time she dances we are treated to a crazy fantasy action scene involving Babydoll and her fellow female inmates.  Scott Glenn makes an appearance in a role that would otherwise have been filled by the late David Carradine, playing Charlie to the girls’ Angels for each mission they go on.

This movie has been the subject to a great deal of criticism and controversy, specifically attacking the film’s supposed pretensions towards female empowerment as nothing more than juvenile male fantasy.  The problem with this criticism is that the movie seems to be more about the idea of female empowerment via fantasy sex and violence before grim reality rears its ugly head.  But critics reading are reading to deep into what Snyder is doing, as all of this is arbitrary.  The whole point of Sucker Punch is to have an excuse to show off action whackadoo action sequences that have no basis in reality.  Snyder has stated that this was his intent from the beginning, and I don’t see anything wrong with that. (more…)

Mike Fleming at Deadline Hollywood Daily has some details on the upcoming spinoff’s story, which comes directly from Frank Miller’s graphic novel. Because Miller wrote the story for the original “300,” we can have hope that Hollywood won’t break our hearts with this prequel that tells the back-story of Xerxes — the antagonist in the “300.” As we all know, it wasn’t the violence, ripped abs, or CGI that made “300″ such a classic. It was the rich themes that boiled down to live free or die, what it means to be a man, and a fighting for a cause bigger than one’s self. You can bring together all of the same elements of “300,” but if you remove those themes it’s just another mind-numbing video game playing out on a big screen.

DHD:

The film, a spinoff  to 300, is one that the film’s original director Zack Snyder was going to direct. That was until Warner Bros and producer Chris Nolan offered him Man of Steel, and Snyder and wife and producing partner Debra Snyder put Xerxes aside and moved on to rebooting the Superman franchise because Warner Bros needed it. The Snyders have been all over this director selection process. Snyder had written a script with his 300 cohort Kurt Johnstad. Like 300, it is based on a Frank Miller graphic novel that will be shot with the kind of stylized period green-screen action visuals that became the signature of 300 and helped the film gross $456 million worldwide. Xerxes was the Persian leader seen in 300. Miller’s graphic novel told the story of how Xerxes became this peculiar god-like entity. That mythology goes back to the death of his father, Darius, from injuries sustained at the Battle of Marathon in 490 B.C. Darius had told his son not to attack the Greeks because they can only be punished by a god, and so Xerxes tried to transform himself into a deity to gain revenge.

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This is about as good of a decision as director Zack Snyder could make in an era where we cannot yet clone Margot Kidder, who represented one of the all-time great casting choices in film history. Amy Adams conveys strength and intelligence, but most of all she’s a woman and not a girl. This also telegraphs that the character of  Superman (who will be played by 27 year-old Henry Cavill) will be portrayed as SuperMAN and not a SuperBroodingMetrosexual as we saw in the dreadful “Superman Returns.”

I don’t know anything about her background, but at least Amy Adams looks like might have at one time not lived in the San Fernando Valley and experienced some life outside of a mall. She can also convey Lois Lane’s spunk without completely getting on my nerves. All in all, a very promising casting choice. Most of all, though, the choice shows the director’s confidence in his lead actor to hold his own. Adams is a star in her own right with real charisma.

Superman’s going to have his hands full.

The Los Angeles Times:

The 36-year-old star got the news on Sunday from director Zack Snyder, who phoned her from Paris, where he was promoting his just-opened film, “Sucker Punch.” There had been a crush of Hollywood interest in the lead female role in the Warner Bros. project but Snyder said that after meeting with Adams, she was the clear choice to take on a character that dates back to 1938 and has long represented the strong, professional woman who can hold her own against any man – even if he can leap tall buildings in a single bound.

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As a lifelong movie buff working my dream job as a film critic, I’m generally pretty easy to please. I go into every movie wanting to be entertained and willing to give the filmmaker a shot – in fact, so much so that some people have wondered if there’s anything I don’t like.

Well, have I got an answer for them: the new movie “Sucker Punch” is the worst, most agonizing and incomprehensible movie I have ever seen. Dark, grim and utterly unpleasant, it comes from the mind of Zach Snyder, who has directed the remake of “Dawn of the Dead” as well as “300,” “Watchmen,” and that weird owl movie from last fall. Tragically, he’s been announced as the director of an upcoming “Superman” reboot, which leads me to think it’s not Kryptonite that will kill the Man of Steel, but rather Zach Snyder.

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“Sucker Punch” is dark, grim and utterly unpleasant from the get-go, as the opening scene shows a teenage girl learning her mother has died, as her stepfather sneers at the death and her sadness. He flips out when he finds that his wife’s will left her apparent fortune to her two daughters, and his abusiveness compels the young blonde pigtailed gal to whip out a gun and try to shoot him – only to miss and accidentally kill her sister instead.

As a result, she gets packed off to a mental institution that’s actually a weird sort of bordello in which teen girls are dumped off and trained to dress like tramps and dance whorishly for paying male customers who then apparently have their way with them. Our protagonist is renamed Baby Doll and is ordered by a ridiculous evil choreographer with an atrocious Eastern European accent (Carla Gugino in a rare misfired role) to start dancing or die.

But when the music – if you can call it that, as it’s an utterly obnoxious sonic atrocity that sounds like Trent Reznor attempted to write a burlesque score – starts, Baby Doll closes her eyes, starts to shimmy a little, and…

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Zack Snyder has made a name for himself through visually stunning films, strong characters and larger than life stories. The beyond-epic “300,” beautiful “Watchmen,” soaring “Legend of the Guardians.” His latest, “Sucker Punch,” strives for an unknown in sensory overload, in some ways combining elements of all three into one explosive vision. 

“Sucker Punch” stars Baby Doll (Emily Browning), a blonde beauty thrown into a mental institution by her stepfather, who sees a path to her mother’s fortune through her demise. Baby Doll is scheduled for a lobotomy within a week of arriving at the institution, sealing her stepfather’s grip on the fortune. To save herself, she must escape. To do so, she enlists the help of fellow asylum inmates (a who’s who of rising young actresses) and a vivid imagination. Between the two, reality and fantasy blur, as Snyder’s rock-and-roll ride inhabits worlds beyond the constructs of “Inception” and “Alice in Wonderland.” As her psychologist (Carla Gugino) in the asylum assures her, she has all the weapons she needs inside of herself. All she must do is fight. 

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And she does, in some of the most original battle sequences I’ve ever seen. Spike’s Deadliest Warrior can’t compare to the battle combinations of Zack Snyder. Our heroines are the stuff of fanboy dreams, their schoolgirl outfits accessorized with bits of armor and an arsenal of weapons including but not limited to samurai swords, machine guns, a Native American tomahawk and Revolutionary War pistols – with a giant robot, what looks like a WW II bomber and a futuristic helicopter for air support – battle goblins, knights, a dragon, oriental light-filled samurai giants, robots and World War I steam-powered zombie Germans – yes, you read that correctly – in landscapes that range from a medieval castle to another planet in some technologically-advanced future. Their dilapidated insane asylum looks pretty normal by comparison. 

Snyder’s signature style of mixing slow-motion and ultra-fast-paced action is back with a vengeance. One battle in particular, when the girls fight robots on a bullet train, is shot in fluid motion, without cuts that I can remember – just a rhythmic speed-up and slow-down. It’s an incredible scene. In addition, battle sounds are gratingly amplified, bringing the fight that much closer. 

For a film so visually stunning and intense, there’s a surprising lack of color, as Snyder again paints from a palette of gray and black hues. 

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Our friends at Screen Rant have more….

The 27 year-old Cavill, while relatively unknown compared to fellow DC superhero actors Christian Bale and Ryan Reynolds, is a growing star and certainly has the look to play a younger Clark Kent, a much younger Clark Kent compared to the rumors of 40 year-old Jon Hamm of Mad Men fame playing the iconic character.

Read the full report here.

And so what if he’s a Brit?

What’s great and unique and exceptional about America is that anyone can become an American. Anyone can fight for truth, justice, and the American way. Never forget that the last American cast as Superman fought for truth justice and all that stuff.

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When word hit that Zack Snyder would be directing a Christopher Nolan produced, David Goyer written version of “Superman,” many a geek heart rejoiced. Images of super slo-mo action, desaturated color palettes, and snappy and powerful one-liners filled our heads. All was good in the Geekosphere.

Then, alas, came word that the script for the film was “a mess.” The oddly named “Vulture” dropped the bomb that Snyder had been hired because the studio wanted a director capable of putting together a hacky “rush job” so Warner Brothers could keep the rights to the Man of Steel. Director Darren Aronofsky, fresh off the buzz of his upcoming film “The Black Swan” passed on the project because it was in such disarray and reeked of a studio cash grab…. Great Ceasar’s ghost, what’s going on here?

If you haven’t been reading Big Hollywood, or living on Planet Earth, you might not know that Hollywood has a leftist bent to it. You also may not know that the Hollywood press is just as corrupt, self-serving and leftist as their cousins in the mainstream media. The reports of “Superman’s” death are greatly exaggerated. This is nasty spin, aimed to take down two of Hollywood’s new school power players while boosting up a critical darling who has little appeal outside the coastal critics community. It also has a lot to do with politics and ideology.

One has to feel for Darren Aronofsky. I like his films to a certain degree, but don’t think that he is a ground-breaking visionary the way that many film students, mainstream critics, and hipsters claim him to be. “Requiem for a Dream” is not some seminal milestone in the history of film. I do think he is capable and incredibly talented. He has been attached to several high profile projects, and it seems that whenever a film is hunting for a director, his name pops up. He was attached to “Batman” before Nolan and has long been rumored to be the man behind the camera for the “Robocop” reboot. Yet, instead of those films, he continues to do well received, smaller, art house projects like “The Wrestler” and “Black Swan.” (more…)

Some very (to say the least) encouraging news from filmdom broke yesterday: “300″ director Zack Snyder will direct the new Superman film for Warner Bros., and as we already knew, ”Dark Knight” director Christopher Nolan will oversee the reboot as a producer. You couldn’t ask for a stronger super-hero Dream Team, which is why I couldn’t disagree more with comments like this:

Snyder is all about style over substance, and I think that’s a big reason why Bryan Singer’s “Superman Returns” didn’t work, causing the studio to reboot the franchise just four years later.

Zack Snyder’s “Watchmen,” which will someday be recognized as the masterpiece it is, was twice as substantive and complicated (in the best way) as any film that came out that year. But even before that, with “300,” Snyder proved he understands and is uniquely capable of managing big, important, universal and timeless themes without hurting the overall story’s broader commercial appeal. And since this latest incarnation of the Man of Steel will be yet another reboot, Snyder is the perfect director to intelligently bring together all the necessary elements – mythology, character, action and excitement. 

Some leftist critics slammed “300″ as simplistic and stupid. Intentionally or not, they unfairly judged the film from a political point of view as opposed to an artistic one because they see the themes that drove “300″ — those of self sacrifice, what it means to be a man, live free or die, and opposing cowardly appeasers willing to enable evil in exchange for the “stability” of slavery – as simplistic and silly. While that may be their sophisticated and impressively nuanced political opinion, artistically those are far from simplistic themes and extremely difficult to pull off without resorting to the inane, on-the-nose political speechifying that’s plagued every anti-war film since Bush Derangement Syndrome ravaged the Hollywood Hills.  (more…)

Who says Zach Snyder can’t make a family picture? After “Sin City” and “300,” I had my doubts, but “Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole” is not only a visual masterpiece Snyder-style – complete with slow motion – but it’s also a classic tale of good versus evil, told with stunning animation of epic proportions. 

“Legend of the Guardians” follows Soren (Jim Sturgess), a young owl obsessed with stories of “the Guardians,” a clan of warrior owls who protect the weak from an evil army called the Pure Ones. When Soren and his brother, Kludd (Ryan Kwanten), are kidnapped by these Pure Ones, the stories become reality. Soren escapes and hunts for the Guardians to save the owl kingdom from the Pure Ones, while Kludd slowly becomes one. 

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What sets “Legend” apart from other animated films is the scale, style and attention to detail. Director Zack Snyder creates a boundary-less world with expansive deserts, gloomy mountains, trees of mythic size, giving realistic landscapes an ancient, legendary feel. Where animated “Beowolf” and “A Christmas Carol” still look mildly mechanical and fake, and films like “Shrek,” “How to Train you Dragon” and “Toy Story” all maintain an animated style, “Legend of the Guardians” strives for realism (aside from the obvious: owls in armor) through its details – feathers are ruffled, armor is rusted and nothing is entirely perfect. 

The film is based on the first three novels of Kathryn Lasky’s series and was adapted by screenwriters Kathryn Lasky’s  and Emil Stern. Cramming three books into one film cut the story down to a very basic plot, making it a classic “coming of age” tale about a young protagonist searching for his place in the world. That’s a pretty generic story, though the owls are new. Additionally, the Pure Ones are enslaving other owls to “mine” for a strange rock that traps owls in a force field. Weird and far-fetched, dark and a bit confusing, this “evil plot” feels out of place in an ancient epic.  (more…)

Now that we know Hollywood will be twisting Captain America into Captain And All That Stuff, we can at least start to look forward to director Zack Snyder’s follow up to “300,” a film that made absolutely no apologies or morally relativistic statements about the exceptionalism of Western Civilization. 

According to the L.A. Times, Frank Miller, the creator of  “300,” has shown Snyder enough of his upcoming graphic novel “Xerxes,” a companion to “300,” that the director has already begun writing the script even though a formal deal isn’t yet in place for him to direct. 

It’s neither prequel nor sequel, precisely, since the time setting begins years before the events of “300″ and then moves up past the first film’s 480 B.C. Spartan battle.

“This movie follows Themistocles and the Battle of Artemisium, which coincidentally happens on the exact same three days as the Battle of Thermopylae [which was the basis of '300'],” Snyder said. “This one starts off with a quick retelling of the why of the Persian wars. It starts off at the Battle of Marathon and then it goes back to Themistocles  finding out that Persians are invading again. and off we go over to learn a little bit about why Xerxes is the way he is.”

He went on with a Greek history lesson told in Synder’s dude-speak: “Darius [the Persian king and father of Xerxes] gets wounded at Marathon and he’s super cool and like a great guy. Even the Greeks are like, ‘Darius is awesome.’ After Darius dies, Xerxes is so distraught, but Darius had told him, ‘Don’t attack the Greeks, only a god can punish the Greeks.’  So that’s when he calls his mystics and wizards and says, ‘Make me a god so I can avenge my father.’ “

Below the fold Snyder does something virtually unheard of in Hollywood today, he uses the word “democracy” in a positive way: (more…)

With 400,000 Americans showing up every year at the Indy 500 and 200,000 more buying tickets to see NASCAR’s premiere event The Daytona 500, you would think that the most creative minds in Hollywood would be looking for a way to cash in with more movies about car racing and car culture. NASCAR has an estimated 75 million fans, and it is second only to the National Football League in terms of television ratings, so where are all the good racing movies?

Jordana Brewster is reunited with Vin, Paul and Michelle in FAST & FURIOUS

Universal seems to have answered that question by getting its successful street racing franchise back into the fast lane this weekend with Fast & Furious. The movie, which reunites Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster and Michelle Rodriguez for the first time since 2001’s original surprise blockbuster, has exploded to a high octane $30.11M or so on Friday and that could mean a $70M opening weekend. That would make it the all-time #1 opening for a car racing movie.

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Universal’s Fast & Furious will be “burning rubber” this weekend at America’s multiplexes as the original street-racing cast reunites after some sub-par chapters of the franchise.

The original The Fast & The Furious hit theatres in 2001 under the direction of Rob Cohen who had shown a knack for action with Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story ($35M US cume) and Sly Stallone’s Daylight ($33M US cume) and a savvy feel for bigger-than-life characters in his Golden Globe winning biopic The Rat Pack (which, if you’ve never seen you should put in your Netflix cue and prepare to be amazed by Don Cheadle’s turn as Sammy Davis, Jr.). In tow, he had a 34-year-old Vin Diesel in only his second starring role following the surprise low budget hit Pitch Black ($39M cume) and 28-year-old Paul Walker, who had just starred in Cohen’s forgettable The Skulls. Also in the cast was Jordana Brewster (As the World Turns) and a pre-Lost Michelle Rodriguez, whose most notable credit was a gritty little indie called Girlfight.

Vin Diesel returns for FAST & FURIOUS

The result was box office jet fuel. Seemingly out of nowhere, The Fast & The Furious scored a scalding $40M opening weekend and reached $144.5M domestic and over $200M worldwide. But Diesel, whose signature line in the original movie is “I live my life one quarter of a mile at a time,” didn’t like the script for the sequel (or they wouldn’t pay his asking price depending on who you ask). That led to the 2003 sequel 2 Fast 2 Furious directed by Academy Award nominee John Singleton (Boyz n the Hood) starring Walker along with rapper Tyrese Gibson and Eva Mendes. Despite Diesel’s conspicuous absence, 2 Fast still delivered $127M in the US. (more…)

It is an excellent weekend for Dreamworks Animation. Although the credit crunch prevented financing that would allow exhibitors to undertake the digital conversion of more of its theatres, Monsters vs. Aliens is benefiting spectacularly from the 2,075 or so standard Digital 3-D engagements and the added 143 Digital IMAX runs. The audaciously ambitious animated send-up of 50’s B-movies has used the “bleeding edge” of technology to milk an estimated $16.7M in opening day ticket sales. The which could translate to $58M or so for the 3-day weekend.

MONSTERS VS. ALIENS towers over previous 3-D releases from Hollywood

If that number holds, and, if anything, they could drift higher as family audiences flood America’s multiplexes, Monsters vs. Aliens will be the all-time third-best opening in the month of March.

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Jeffrey Katzenberg has been the film industry’s strongest proponent of 3-D over the past few years, and this weekend his advocacy will start paying dividends for Dreamworks Amimation. Monsters Vs. Aliens will debut with 4,104 playdates. That makes it the 13th-widest release in modern film history, and it becomes the biggest non-summer debut of all-time.

Jeffrey Katzenberg - The Pied Piper for Digital 3-D

ALL-TIME WIDEST NON-SUMMER RELEASES
- with summer defined as May 1 – August 30 -
1. 3/27/09 – Monsters Vs. Aliens – 4,104 playdates
2. 11/07/08 – Madagascar 2 – 4,056 playdates
3. 10/01/04 – Shark Tale – 4,016
4. 3/31/06 – Ice Age: The Meltdown – 3,964
5. 3/14/08 – Dr. Suess’ Horton Hears A Who – 3,954

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It was another good weekend for Summit Entertainment. The distributor behind last year’s meteoric hit Twilight has scored a solid hit with the Alex Proyas-directed Knowing, starring Nicolas Cage. Despite shaky word-of-mouth and negative reviews, the sci-fi thriller got a solid 9% bump on Saturday for a $9.7M second day, and it will likely finish its opening weekend with a possible $24.8M.

As a production company, Summit is responsible for some monster hits, including commercially and/or artistically successful films like Once (Oscar nominee for Best Picture), American Pie ($102..5M domestic), Memento (Oscar nominee for Best Original Screenplay: Chris Nolan), Mr. & Mrs. Smith ($186.3M domestic) and In the Valley of Ellah (Tommy Lee Jones nominated for Best Actor). But as a distributor, they got off to a slow start. (more…)

Early box office returns are pointing to a weekend win for Knowing from Summit, but I will put my money on I Love You, Man (Dreamworks/Paramount) to generate more in US ticket sales over the long haul. The Nicolas Cage sci-fi thriller has grabbed an estimated $8.95M to start the weekend, and it will likely finish at $24M or so. That is, unless word-of-mouth catches up to it first.

Will reviews and word-of-mouth catch up to KNOWING?

Reviews for Knowing, written and directed by Alex Proyas, the inventive filmmaker behind the visually striking 1998 film Dark City and the 2004 Will Smith mega-hit I, Robot, has received overwhelmingly negative reviews (25% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes), but thanks to Twitter, real-time movie-goer reactions spread like wildfire. Here are some Tweets I just grabbed off the social networking platform.

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For the last few weeks, Summit’s Knowing, starring Nicolas Cage, has appeared to be the likely winner of the upcoming box office weekend. But, my sources tell me that I Love You, Man, the new comedy starring Paul Rudd (Role Models) and Jason Segal (Forgetting Sarah Marshall) has surged in the latest pre-release industry tracking.

In the spirit of March Madness, I’m calling for the upset. I Love You, Man may not actually be a Judd Apatow movie, but it sure does look like one in trailers and commercials. The movie reportedly “rocked the house” at the South By South West Festival last week, and the buzz is very positive. I am calling for $21.5M, which would be above industry expectations.

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As expected Disney’s Race To Witch Mountain enjoyed a huge Saturday surge for just over $11M in tickets sold, and the reboot of the 70’s franchise will finish with about $25M for the 3-day. Overall, Race posted the year’s seventh-best Saturday performance.

TOP 10 SATURDAY GROSSES IN 2009
1. March 7 – Watchmen – $18.3M
2. February 21 – Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes To Jail – $16.6M
3. February 14 – Friday the Thirteenth – $14.3M
4. January 17 – Paul Blart: Mall Cop – $13.2M
5. January 10 – Gran Torino – $12.1M
6. January 31 – Taken – $11.65M
7. March 14 - Race To Witch Mountain – $11M (estimated)
8. February 7 – He’s Just Not That Into You – $10.9M
9. January 17 – Paul Blart: Mall Cop – $10M
10. January 17 – Gran Torino – $10M
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As Watchmen (Warner Bros) falls, “The Rock” appears to be racing to a weekend win. Disney’s Race To Witch Mountain, starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, is off to a solid start with $6.8M or so on opening day, and, with its expected surge in family matinee audiences on Saturday and Sunday, it will likely triumph with a possible $24.25M.

Meanwhile last weekend’s winner Watchmen staggered to a second Friday of only $5.4M or so, and I am projecting only $15.75M for the 3-day. That marks a 71% drop. Anything over $20M would have been acceptable, but the bottom has fallen out of this movie, and it will now struggle to reach $100M domestic. When the foreign and DVD are added, it may make a small profit, but it will likely be negligible. The superstitious might suggest that Watchmen writer Alan Moore’s alleged curse may be to blame, but the reality is that word-of-mouth has been more negative than for any movie in recent memory.

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