Mar 9 2009Hey, You Watched the Watchmen -- Congratulations
Your weekend box office results:
1. Watchmen - $55.7 million. The non-stop barrage viral marketing wasn't enough to push Zack Snyder's latest past his previous March opener, 300, which had no viral marketing except the promise of some dudes fucking some other dudes up and someone getting foot-pushed into a hole. Now we know what brings in the crowds.
2. Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail - $8.8 million. I thought its reverent faithfulness to the Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail comic mini-series doomed the visually lush film to mediocrity. What did you guys think?
3. Taken - $7.5 million. Have YOU been taken? If not, get on it; it's been a month-and-a-half and you still haven't been taken. Hurry up and get taken.
4. Slumdog Millionaire - $6.9 million. Sales spiked when a 3rd grade teacher came up with a field trip plan that would allow her to both catch up on her movie viewing and teach the kids oxymorons.
5. Paul Blart: Mall Cop - $4.2 million. You thought you saw the last of Blart? Think again. You will never see the last of Blart. Blart is forever omnipresent. You can only define the universe as having more or less Blart at any given time.
Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]
Reader Comments
1. TetterkeT - March 9, 2009 1:57 PM
Boy, what an awful movie.
2. Elmo - March 9, 2009 2:08 PM
what awful movie??
3. dfg - March 9, 2009 2:08 PM
YOUR MOM IS AWFUL! Nothing was wrong with Watchmen. You obviously need your super herores stories spoon fed to you. I bet you thought Spider Man 3 was awesome. Faggot.
4. sully - March 9, 2009 2:11 PM
@2 and 3
there's five movies you could've figured he was talking about, at least two of them are certainly awful, but which two?
5. TetterkeT - March 9, 2009 2:12 PM
Seems the Intarwebz woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning...
@2: Pick any one from the top 5 up there. All shit.
@3: I think you need to reevaluate who you're calling faggot -- you're obviously the one that likes watching big blue cock for 3 hours.
6. Nice Pete - March 9, 2009 2:17 PM
Not enough people are watching it though. If you do a little research on boxofficemojo.com, the last several comic book/big budget action movies (as well as most movies in general) made 20-40% of their total sales in the first weekend. Movies that had mixed or negative reviews made a bigger chunk of their total in the first weekend than movies that got good reviews and drew in audiences for a longer time.
Watchmen has gotten some raves, but in general it seems to be getting a mixed reception (65% on rottentomatoes). The $55.7mil is only 37% of its $150 million production cost, so depending on what the trend in ticket sales looks like next weekend, it might end up making only a small profit when all is said and done, and there is a real (though slim) chance they'll lose money out of it.
7. W. Hung. - March 9, 2009 2:21 PM
Who wants to watch it when you probably spend a good chunk of it staring at Dr. Manhattens blue penis.
8. Photoshop Police - March 9, 2009 3:18 PM
I never got fixated on Dr. Manhattan's full-frontal. After a while, I didn't even notice it. The people who keep mentioning it need to consider that the prudish nature of Americans (we were founded by a bunch of Puritans, remember?) is the main reason why they threw in 5 minutes of "Superhero Porn" in the middle of the movie to balance this concern out.
I had read the graphic novel years ago, so I was familiar with the story, but didn't remember all the details, and I probably enjoyed the movie more because of that.
If I had gone in not having any reference, I might have been a little confused about the story, as it seemed a little disjointed.
Would have been nice if the music from the previews (Muse?) had bee in the movie, but it wasn't.
LIKED THE STORY. LOVED THE VISUALS. I'll give it 3 stars out of 5 on the non-suck-o-meter.
9. Mr Hobbes - March 9, 2009 5:15 PM
Music from the previews was Smashing Pumpkins . . . unless you are talking about a preview I'm not familiar with, which is quite likely, considering all of the clips released before this movie
10. Matt - March 9, 2009 6:03 PM
My good friend saw Watchmen (and he's a HUGE fan of the novel...even has a full back-piece tattoo from it) and he didnt like the movie at all.
11. B Colb - March 9, 2009 6:06 PM
Movie was solid, but not fantastic. for once i agree with ebert http://www.newsy.com/videos/watching_the_watchmen/
12. Pekod - March 9, 2009 7:45 PM
I have never before had a movie leave a dark, sinking sensation in my chest. I have read the comic multiple times, and I loved it. But seeing it brought to life so faithfully, (with a few exceptions) had a negative effect on me. I can't bring myself to watch it again.
And yes, a few of the music choices were horrible. Hallelujah was either stupefyingly bad, or completely beyond me? Dylan was an ok choice.
I never really looked at the blue wang. You guys haven't looked at yourselves in the mirror enough, maybe? The pacing on the prison scene where Rorshach kills Big Figure's henchmen was way too fast.
13. Meh - March 9, 2009 10:22 PM
Watchmen was meh....about fell asleep.
14. Smurf Cock - March 10, 2009 12:31 AM
If you like watching blue genitals, click the link above (NSFW)!
15. Yatz - March 10, 2009 2:12 AM
Loved the movie, except for:
* The supers were WAY too super
* The musical choices were ludicrous
* Doc M's thingie was 3 times bigger than mine. wtf? WTF?!
16. msjessiemeghan - March 10, 2009 10:23 AM
As a chick that likes action/sci-fi/comic-book movies, and never read the comic, and also thinks its about time there is more wang than bewbs...
I enjoyed the movie. As long as it was, I did not get bored. I thought most of the music choices were great. I loved the violence, shocking at times but only in that "thats cool" way. Superhero porn in the middle...odd. Neither were people I wanted to see naked or "doing it" but still ok. The part I enjoyed most? PENIS. And not because I do not see enough penis or that that penis was particularly exciting. In fact it was so average, fantastically average, except the glowing blue part. The fact that it was NO BIG DEAL was great. It was not "in your face" (but my boyfriend disagrees) and I just feel that as much as I enjoy boobage and hotness, I feel American movies need more man bits to even things out a bit.
So I vote: More man bits!
Oh I also liked the narration and Dr. Manhattan's soft voice. mmm
17. Photoshop Police - March 10, 2009 11:45 AM
FYI -
I identified the Muse song from the previews. It was "Take a Bow" from Black Holes and Revelations.
18. J.D. - March 10, 2009 12:12 PM
Gotta say, I loved it, as did the rest of the group I went with, 3 guys (myself included) and my wife.
As for the wang, none of us really noticed it, it kind of played into Dr. Manhattan being disconnected from humanity. He didn't care about it, neither did we. The people who found it so distracting obviously have a deeper fascination with it that they need to take a look at.
@15, Three times bigger? Dude, I'm so sorry.
@16, I think the reason for the dominance of female nudity is that most men prefer it (or feel compelled to pretend or believe they do) and many women either find attraction or get to satisfy their desire to compare themselves. Also, many men have issues with either latent desires or inadequacies and get uncomfortable with male nudity (as we've seen here), and a fair number of women would feel it was an intrusion and be offended by it's inclusion.
Personally, I liked Silk Specter 2's nude scene, thought she was quite tasty, and after the first couple of scenes, I stopped noticing Dr. M's glowing blue thunder weasel, it was just a tool (no pun intended) to show how not human he was anymore.
I also loved the music, I like the surreal atmosphere it gave the violence. I thought it was a lot of fun. I haven't read the book yet, I wanted to wait to see the flick first so it didn't taint my opinion, I plan on picking it up this week and comparing, we'll see if my opinion changes then...
19. sully - March 10, 2009 3:01 PM
i think I'm the only one who reads this site regularly that hasn't seen this movie yet. damn you debt!
20. Stuey - March 10, 2009 4:55 PM
Good god, you people act like you have never seen a penis. If you have one what's the deal? you see it every day, not like you don't know what it is.
Scared some gay might rub off on you? Moron you ARE gay if you think that way.
Women, you like the penis so enjoy it on the screen and quit bitching about how they never show dick in movies.
21. watchmen, uh, yeah - March 11, 2009 4:20 PM
i agree with most of you guys here, watchmen was OK. thats it.
i was expecting more action of which there was hardly ANY - that totally sucked. anywho, i def. won't watch it again. oh yeah, its way to long and they focused on the love relationships a little too much...
22. sexy ass - January 15, 2010 5:23 PM
we live in a beautiful world!!!!!!!!!!!