Watching The Watchmen Watchers 10: I Imagine This Could Be The Last One

* the box office expectations game is one of the most depressing things in the entertainment industry and American mainstream culture generally, as it puts a huge emphasis on initial performance, financial performance in general, and a film "disappoints" according to standards that might not have been fair to begin and the wisdom of which are almost never questioned. To use two comics examples, as I recall the Garfield movie made more money than Sin City by just about any measure you'd care to name, but the latter film had a better industry-success storyline based in part on the expectations game and a strong opening weekend. Anyhow, ICv2.com has the expectations-soaked report card for the Watchmen film: big opening, still not up to what some industry people thought it might do and not a film that shows classic signs of momentum that would make for a strong week two or overall hit status. Foreign markets seem positive thus far; those tend to be a significant factor in propelling these films over the line into profitability no matter where conventional wisdom settles on how an individual movie did in the US.

* in case you missed it, I reviewed the film here. I received two letters on that review yesterday morning, here and here.

* this time next week someone will likely address the issue of extended "director's cut" releases of the film. I suppose if it tanks in week two, with a loss of box office over 75 percent, this might be called into question to the point someone will write about it. That's a huge, amateurish guess on my part and my personal hunch is that these extras will happen as long as the company believes there's a hardcore audience that will embrace it.

* I also imagine it's entirely possible you see a mini-rush on articles the next couple of days where papers are burning off pieces that might have been held in anticipation that the film was going to do so well that it would be a big, big story for film going into next weekend as opposed to a story of interest.

* the writer John Horn, who's done probably the best work on the film in terms of its coverage path up to its release, turns in the third of his three articles on the movie: a interview/profile of David Hayter. One thing worth noting is Hayter's description as to what the movie is about, which seems to me fairly convincing given what's on screen.
 
posted 8:00 am PST | Permalink
 

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