Watching the "Watchmen" boxoffice

According to early estimates by boxofficemojo.com, Watchmen grossed $55 million this weekend, which is a healthy figure for a violent, 2 1/2-hour R-rated picture, but short of the $60-$70 million projections the studio was eyeing.

By comparison, 300 (the movie that landed Zack Snyder the Watchmen directing gig) earned $70 million in its debut weekend two years ago. The $55 million proves the graphic novel fans turned out en masse this week. It will be the film's word-of-mouth, however, that determines how it fares from now on.

I am seeing Last House on the Left tomorrow night at the AMC Aventura, so I am going to make it a double feature and finally see Watchmen on the IMAX there, either before or after the Wes Craven remake.

Today, I'm working on a Miami Film Festival piece to run in Tuesday's Herald on Leon Ichaso's Paraiso.  Here's a link to my piece from today's paper on wild man Abel Ferrara, who is being honored by the festival with a career achievement tribute on Thursday night. Even though the type is too small to read, I like posting the actual newspaper pages on here, because the stories look and read better in print than they do online.

Wait, does that make me sound like an old fart?

 

Comments

[Chris]

Dr. Manhattan's nudity is hilarious to some 30 year old men. I laughed when one guy kissed his girlfriend on the cheek immediately after the shot of Patrick Wilson standing naked in front of his costume. As a confidently heterosexual man, I was relieved to see a mainstream movie with plentiful scenes of male - albeit CGI - nudity.

[Juan]

I suspect this film will fall big next weekend. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely LOVED the picture. it was everything I hoped it woul dbe, but it's far too dense and layered and too smart a movie for the general movie going public.

And it's funny how some men completely fall to pieces whenever they see male nudity. It's blue, and it's CGI, but some people have written the movie off only because they get to see a blue tallywacker. That's pretty pathetic.