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As the date approached for the much-anticipated release of the Watchmen movie, I learned of a little discussion that had been going on. The biggest hit movie for the closing of 2008 had been Twilight, and by the weekend of Watchmen's opening, had amassed some $190.7 million in box office earnings over its 16 week head start.
On one side of this discussion, the expectation was that Watchmen was going to easily unseat Twilight as the big box office blockbuster. On the other side, the argument was that audiences had already proven Twilight had staying power.
Watchmen started strong, raking in an impressive $55.2 million on its opening weekend. With a solid publicity campaign and intriguing teasers, it was no surprise that the movie knocked Madea Goes to Jail out of the number 1 spot it had held for two weeks. Alas, for all the expectations and hype, holding the number 1 spot for two weeks was one feat the Watchmen could not muster. Its second week found it relegated to the number 2 spot, nearly $7 million dollars behind Disney's Race to Witch Mountain's $24 million dollar box office.
By its third weekend of release, Watchmen skipped the number 3 and 4 spots at the box office and slipped to #5, with earnings of $6.8 million for the weekend. Week 4, down to #8, with $2.7 million; week 5, it sank to #13 with $1 million in earnings. By the weekend of April 25th, Watchmen sat at #29, with $125,200 in earnings for a total box office so far of $107 million.
It doesn't look promising for it to close the gap with Twilight's $191 million.
While Watchmen certainly hasn't been a failure in the box office, this does beg the question of why a movie with such a strong start and so much anticipation should fall so fast.
I believe the answer is found in many of the comments I've read on-line from those who have seen the movie. Watchmen is a terrific story with some interesting twists on the typical super-hero tale, and as such, it should have had a wide audience appeal. The trouble is, the story contains violence, nudity, and sex, and based on the comments, these were shown in more detail than many movie-goers preferred.
One person commented that she and her husband went to see it, and walked out part way through. She wrote, "It was decent at first, then it quickly became ridiculously graphic and pornographic. I mean I cannot BELIEVE that it was only rated R . . . Never have I been so utterly disgusted."
It could be debated whether she was too sensitive and over-reacted, but the simple fact is, this was her reaction and opinion of the movie, and I saw similar sentiments echoed by others. These comments affected other people's decision to see the movie, and - in particular - whether to allow their kids to see it.
Whether it was an overreaction by some movie-goers or not, the sad fact is, it could have been avoided altogether. Hollywood has long been quite adept at showing audiences what we don't see. One complaint about the movie was Dr. Manhattan's nudity, and many were shocked to see the glowing blue boy bits right there on the screen. Perhaps the filmmakers liked the idea of pushing the envelope with this one, but it would not have hurt the movie at all to have used the typical technique of blocking the view with strategically placed scenery. It's also a well-established technique to use subtlety to convey when a couple is having sex, without showing two bodies grinding on each other, and violence likewise can be played down for an audience.
Granted, these comments could apply to many movies Hollywood has made that push the envelope and show us far more than we really need to see for the story. One difference, though, is that Watchmen appeared in its trailers as the kind of comic-book superhero story that would appeal to kids, when the reality is, it's always been a very adult story. People don't tend to get upset when they go to a movie expecting it to be a graphic movie with a good deal of adult content, but when they go expecting something they can relax and watch with their kids, and are surprised by the content, that creates problems.
The interesting contrast is with the movie Taken, released a few weeks earlier than Watchmen, and which had a far more modest expectation and start. Taken earned a reasonable $24 million its first weekend, and bounced around the top of the chart doing okay. It never had the "blockbuster" hype or feel about it, but after 13 weeks in theaters, it was #20 in box office for the weekend of April 25th, with total earnings of $142.6 million. Taken, which deals with a former intelligence operative searching for his daughter that has been kidnapped by white slavers in Paris, could lend itself well to graphic content. Liam Neeson's character has to fight organized crime goons, and search for his daughter in seedy brothels, yet the movie stays within the PG-13 rating. Maybe some in the audience felt cheated that they didn't get to see more nudity or bloodier violence, but based on its staying power in theaters, it appears plenty of people found it entertaining without the graphic content.
Watchmen could have been the blockbuster of the year, but sadly, it seems it was held back by its own content. Who's watching the Watchmen? Apparently, not as many people as the producers hoped, and not as many as are watching Paul Blart: Mall Cop (#19 for the weekend of April 25th, with a total earnings so far of $145 million).
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