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SUNDAY AM: Here are North American box office numbers:
1. Witch Mountain (Dis) [3,187 theaters] $6.7M Fri, $10.9M Sat, $26M wkd
2. Watchmen (WB) [3,611] $5.3M Fri, $7.4M Sat, $18M wkd (-67%), Cume $86M
3. Last House On The Left (Uni) [2,401] $5.6M Fri, $5.3M Sat, $14.6M wkd
Disney’s formula of pairing Dwayne Johnson with rugrats in family fare keeps working for audiences even if it’s tiring to Hollywood. The Rock reunites with his Game Plan director Andy Fickman to reimagine this 1970s franchise — so much so that No. 1 Race To Witch Mountain went up a big 73% from Friday to Saturday because of crowded kiddie matinees. PG-rated films are on fire right now, and this pic movie played across the board to all ages: 51%/49% female/male, while families dominated at 68%, and unaccompanied couples were a surprisingly decent 18%.
Not so R-rated superhero doomsday saga Watchmen. I wrote my Postmortem back on Wednesday, focusing on whether the Warner Bros pic would have legs or earn out. Of course, Hollywood expected an enormous domestic drop from last Friday’s number (which included the grosses from Thursday midnight and Friday 12:01 AM screenings). Still, -78% is a pretty staggering number, as is -73% even if the midnight shows are excluded. But the pic recovered a lot last night, helped by 124 Imax screens, climbing 42% from Friday. ”We’re having a great night. The Dark Knight was only up 22% on the 2nd Saturday,” a Warner Bros exec tells me. “We just might settle in and fool a few of the naysayers.”This weekend went down -67% compared to last.
Internationally, too, the drops were better — UK -64%, and Australia -54%. Yet how embarrassing that the long-awaited Big Screen retelling of the widely admired graphic novel lost Friday to Rogue/Universal’s run-of-the-mill Last House On The Left playing in 1,200 less venues but attracting the date night crowd. Watchmen as expected did finish the weekend #2 with a 10-day domestic cume of $86. Paramount is reporting an overseas cume of $49.5M (this weekend was -54% compared to last week’s opening FSS) for an estimated $135.5M worldwide cume. But that’s still underwhelming compared to its $150M cost.
No. 4 Taken dropped only 9% in its 7th weekend of release for an amazing hold. In 5th place, Madea Goes to Jail will wind up as the first Tyler Perry film to cross the $100 million mark. Overture Film’s Sunshine Cleaning opened with a huge opening weekend theater average of $53,500, the highest thus far for all films released in 2009 (including wide releases), according to Media By Numbers stats.
Finally, this was the first “down” weekend in six weeks (last year’s was led by Horton Hears A Who).
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Watchmen is a niche movie with a mainstream budget. That is the source and end of all of its problems. If WB had held the budget to Sin City or Grindhouse it would be hailed as a success. Instead Warners gave it an Iron Man budget. But unlike Iron Man, Watchmen NEVER had the possibility of being a four quadrant film. There is no justification for Watchmen’s budget. It was always insane. Warners didn’t learn their lesson from Speed Racer or even the bloated Superman Returns, which was a $210 million niche indie film.
Watchmen, while rarely above average in GN form when compared to other media, deserved as high a budget as necessary. It did not need Snyder’s overindulgent action scenes.
Speed Racer, or whatever the Wachowski hacks want to create, doesn’t deserve a god damn cent.
SUPERMAN RETURNS a niche film? Hardly. The character is as mainstream as they come. I could see the argument for SPEED RACER, but not SUPERMAN. The fact is WATCHMEN will turn out more like BLADE RUNNER. It’ll make back its money and then some over the long haul, and end up becoming more acclaimed over the years, much like BR.
The fact is very few films these days warrant the prices and inconvenience of seeing them in the theater when the majority of the audience will settle for seeing them in their home theater set-ups or downloaded onto a computer. WATCHMEN is an event film whose visual style makes going to see it on the big screen very worthwhile, much like IRON MAN and THE DARK KNIGHT. RACE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN, on the other hand, is product produced for a generic audience that won’t be thought of on any level similar to WATCHMEN.
As much as I liked SUNSHINE CLEANING, that’s a movie that’ll find the majority of its audience on a TV screen, not in the movie houses. The same applies to at least 80% of all the films that’ll see a theatrical release. With the exception of any film playing on the IMAX screens, I can watch a movie with far more clarity on my widescreen LCD TV than I’ve seen on most of the better theaters projected onto their screens.
“SUPERMAN RETURNS a niche film? Hardly. The character is as mainstream as they come.”
Yes ideally it is a mainstream film but what kind of a Warner Exec greenlit $200 million plus for a 2.5 hour religious-alleghory-stalking-drama in which the hero gets beaten up and the climax comprises of a visit to the hospital?
That film was an abomination: From the muddy visuals to the tedious pace to the unexciting villain and his plans – and what made it worse they thew in a Superboy kid.
A Superman film should be big, bright, action-packed, rousing not a pedantic romantic stalking drama.
Bryan Singer could never handle more than 5 minutes worth of action set pieces in any film (i.e. X-MEN).
Give SUPERMAN II to Michael Bay or someone who can handle this sort of thing.
“The fact is WATCHMEN will turn out more like BLADE RUNNER.”
Thank you for giving me something to laugh at for the rest of my life. Just know that there will always be someone laughing at your statements somewhere for the next several decades.
I think the real story on Watchmen that reveals the limitations of its audience is its gross coming from IMAX. 124 of 3,611 sites represented 10% of Watchmen’s gross its opening weekend.
This weekend, IMAX grosses may represent 1/3 of Watchmen’s gross. That doesn’t mean that IMAX is doing better on week 2. It means that is one of the only places that is selling Watchmen tickets.
RACE did pretty well, I thought the 30 million dollar plus opening was a bit ridiculous and should hold up pretty well with no competition next week and after Monsters vs. Aliens there is nothing the next week either. I expected a steep drop fir Watchmen and should have trouble reaching $125M. Last House did decently but it could have reached higher with lack of horror and the recent success of the genre. anyone have numbers for Miss. March, Crossing Over or Sunshine Cleaning. Also what is up with Phoebe in Wonderland? Why has there been no number releases for even last weekend even?????????
Friday-to-Friday, that’s what, an 80% drop? At least “Friday the 13th” made its production budget back opening day and “Notorious” opening weekend.
Well, duh. Is this surprising to anyone, at least anyone grounded in reality? Watchmen appealed to a very small niche audience and had horrible word-of-mouth. Of course it was going to drop. Witch Mountain appeals to families,and family movies almost always do well.
OUCH. That’s a rough 67% decrease for “The Watchmen.” I think we were all expecting a hefty drop (what with all the fanboys rushing out to see it in its opening weekend), but only matching a THIRD of its business last weekend? That’s gotta smart. I guess the film should still turn a nice profit with worldwide grosses factored in.
To all Speed Racer haters: there was at least a logic of sequel potential in that franchise. Only people who simply do not understand the source material (which might not exclude Warners…) could see sequel potential in Watchmen.
And by the way, Speed Racer was GOOD. If you didn’t see, you can’t comment on it. I want more.
LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT is actually from Rogue — and it’s worth noting that while Universal distributes Rogue product, U no longer owns the company.
In response to filmlover 24/7′s comment:
Don’t forget a) the popularity of the original source material and b) the inherent accessibility of that material and c) how much more accessible the filmmakers make the film translation. Batman and Sups – they are already widely popular cultural icons. There’s a built-in, core audience already. Even BATMAN BEGINS, which teens deemed “boring” still broke the 300 mill mark worldwide. SUPERMAN, even with tepid reviews, still made 391 worldwide. Their subject matter is also inherently ‘get-able’. Rich guy in a batsuit whoops ass vigilante-style using cool toys. Invincible guy fights evil genius with superpowers while dodging green stuff. Got it.
The neat aspect behind IRON MAN is that most of the general public didn’t know who that character was. Kind of like BLADE. Or HELLBOY. But the treatment of the translation from comic to screen was so accessible that audiences wanted to go. Didn’t matter if they knew about the character beforehand or not. The movie trailers looked fun. Downey was an inspired piece of a casting. And the combination of the light script plus Favreau’s solid direction made it a FUN summer opener. In short: it was exactly what a summer popcorn film should be – fun, exciting and smarter than your average bear (except for the whole, “i can make a super suit using tools even McGuyver would throw away” part.) People paid to go see it again and again and again and… you get it.
By contrast, WATCHMEN, aside from fanboys/fangirls, is equally not as well known. And it’s a harder concept to accept – there’s someone killing off superheroes. You throw in an ultra-faithful R-rated adaptation, that looks cool, but retains much of the 80s goofiness, is incredibly dark, and is still inherently tougher for audiences to wrap their heads around – you get a strong opening weekend comprised of buzz and fanboy audiences, and a 70% drop off the following week either because word of mouth is so-so, or the audience is just not there given the material and it’s treatment.
SPEED RACER could have been cool, but a) kids today don’t know the character because there hasn’t been a reboot of the Saturday morning cartoon (are there even Saturday morning cartoons anymore?) and b) the treatment of the source material was ‘kiddie’. They tried to reboot the characters much like IRON MAN or BLADE, but between John Goodman’s Super Mario Mustache and Trixie’s hot pink get-ups, only kids under 13 wanted to see it since it looked so young. It was truly a cartoon in live-action form. Sounds good on paper, probably looked good in dailies, but put together, who was it’s core audience? Who goes to see cartoons, even live-action cartoons?
As for DARK KNIGHT? Well… phenomenons come around once a blue moon. Don’t question it. Just enjoy it. What’s the formula for TITANIC? Or STAR WARS? Or INDY (the first one)? You can point to a slew of factors (Heath’s death, great buzz, great reviews, solid filmmaking, the Joker being used), but at the end of the day, it’s a perfect cultural storm of EVERYTHING that no one could truly predict in it’s entirety.
…just to keep things in perspective folks:
Worldwide gross so far is $94,567,359 and it still hasnt opened everywhere yet.
personally, if it makes a total of about $200M i would consider it a success. even $175 wouldnt be too bad considering how odd-ball the whole movie/heroes is/are.
tell me what stock can recoup 15-30% on an investment in today’s market? hmmm?
just saying.
fewer.
I think the Watchmen -> Blade Runner parallel is a good thought. It is highly stylized, which seems to take time for people to understand, and it’s from a director who had a big hit and everyone had unrealistic expectations. I went to see BR expecting a sci-fi action movie. Non-fans went to Watchmen expecting a comic book tentpole. Whether it proves to be brilliant in long-term analysis, however… Zach Snyder is a lot shallower than Ridley Scott, despite Hayter’s surprisingly profound script.
Dennitzio -
Wasn’t Hayter’s script set in the modern day and 95% junked when Zack Snyder came on board? Just how profound could Hayter’s 5% contribution be? Hayter wrote the Paul Greengrass version. I heard only guild rules kept his name attached to the Snyder version. Is that wrong?
“And by the way, Speed Racer was GOOD.”
With the exception of Matthew Fox who should never do another movie again… yes, I agree it was pretty good.
Last House was very effective and well done. I don’t think it would be Nikki’s cup of tea but discriminating horror fans should find it to be a commendable reworking of Wes Craven’s genre classic. The content was extreme and disturbing but never for exploitative purposes. The viewer actually cares about the victimized teen girl character and after unspeakable things happen to her the rooting interest shifts towards seeing her tormenters get their richly deserved comeuppance. The director of this is somebody whom I’m going to keep an eye on; he showed a really masterful touch with all the compositional elements.
Like Blade Runner, Watchmen is visually stunning. But personally, what I think has made Blade Runner so watchable years after its release in whatever version you prefer is the amazing depth of its casting. Rutger Hauer, Joe Turkel, James Hong, Edward James Olmos, Brion James, etc., etc. all contributed memorable performances as memorable characters. It’s a quotable movie without trying to be one. Maybe Watchmen‘s strengths and reputation will grow as time goes on and the cast continue in their careers to other projects. But I’m not sure it will ever come close to being the sort of long-term landmark movie that Blade Runner became.
When oh when are Hollywood execs going to wake up and realise that sad internet fanboys do not guarantee a successful picture.
Yes I know those losers make a lot of ‘noise’ on bulletin boards, but they are also responsible for flop after flop. Now if only they had girlfriends to bring along…
Like I said last week, Watchmen will sputter to the end of its box office run, get a well-marketed DVD release, then be forgotten on the dust-covered shelves of America.
It will NEVER becoming a classic like Blade Runner…
Its 78% drop in week 2 was UTTERLY PREDICTABLE…
It NEVER had legs, and execs that hoped it would must have known that would be a MIRACLE (hence the massive, yet nebulous marketing push)…
BECAUSE… the movie is boring. There is no story. Nothing driving it. No reason to keep watching, let alone watch it again. It’s BORING.
You can talk about the film’s ambitious, unique style and visuals, but that doesn’t make anyone want to watch anything for 2 hours and 40 minutes. Show me some stills, dial up a clip on YouTube — “whoa, cool effects dude” — “slow-mo to fast-mo on a bone break. rad” — but I don’t need to watch the whole movie to appreciate the visuals (Sin City suffers from the same problem). The visuals shouldn’t substitute for story, they should support it. A story needs to exist first.
You can talk about the film’s faithfulness to the graphic novel. But that makes the film a specimen. Something to examine in university lectures in third year film studies programs or at ComicCon 2012. A graphic novel IS NOT a movie, and movies have different expectations. Period. One of those expectations is a narrative that can carry from frame one to the end of the film.
And because there’s no story, no active characters seeking to overcome complications and triumph through conflict to do what they think is right (at least not for the first two hours), Watchmen is boring. So it’s dead in the water. And the money lost to the studio should be a lesson. Create or develop great characters, great sagas and adventures, and great stories, and you’ll make your money back tenfold every time. Fail to do so and you’ll lose your shirts.
While I don’t agree with the “niche” label, Superman Returns is an interesting parallel. It took a great character — the virile, all-powerful representation of the American Male — and ran him through a two hour and twenty minute film about being a third wheel. Why would anyone want to watch SUPERMAN get CUCKOLDED? He’s all-powerful. If he wants the girl. He should GO AND GET HER. Seriously.
If Watchmen represents the “mystery” of how a big-budget film can fail so hugely, compare Superman Returns to 2009′s other “mystery” film — the smaller-budget Paul Blart Mall Cop that “surprisingly” did so well. I didn’t like Paul Blart, but check it out: in that film, the fat, pathetic, socially awkward, comfort-eating, main character desperately wants a girlfriend and to be taken seriously in law enforcement. During the movie he overcomes serious complications — violent criminals, trouble with alcohol, hypoglycemia, and his own pathetic ways — to get the girl, save the mall, and get offered a job in law enforcement. For bonus points, his kid even gets to see him as a hero. Keep in mind, this isn’t SUPERMAN, this is a FAT LOSER. The film spends the first half hour reminding you how fat and pathetic he is, and even HE gets to triumph. But Superman can’t get the girl? It’s no wonder the audience flocked to Blart and fled from Superman. This is not rocket science.
As a final note, I actually hope they do make a Watchmen Sequel for a couple of reasons. 1. They won’t be able to rely on any source material, so they’ll have to take one of these great characters — I’d vote for a Rorschach prequel — then run him through an actual story concocted on its film merits. It could be dark, violent, stylish — all the elements of Watchmen — but it could also be an awesome story. and 2. Because it will infuriate the fanboys. What’s more? Despite their anger, if the story’s good, the film will succeed, and finally we won’t have to bend the will of the fanboys anymore. We can just make good movies, superhero, adaptations, or otherwise.
Heck, maybe they could even get Happy Madison to produce Rorschach Begins. They seem to be the only ones who know what they’re doing.
All who wanted to see it saw it on opening day. Now it’s just the stragglers and word of mouth. Unfortunately, word of mouth says that the movie is long and graphic. So that will turn off a lot of people. Other that that, it was a well done movie.
Despite the drop this weekend, Watchmen will make back its production and marketing budget. It will sell well on DVD – both the theatrical and director’s cut. It is a niche film made on a mainstream budget, but that was the only was to do the story justice. Anything less would have came across as cutting corners and irritating the core audience even more.
I’m a comic fan, but Watchmen isn’t in my personal top 5 due to its ending. I was pleased with it – it was better than I expected. I went to a comic book store today to pick and the person working there said that he also thought it was good and that the changes that were made were for the better. I think the film will satisfy the people who were familiar with it and a fan of the book, but don’t think it’s the greatest comic book ever. They realize it has its weaknesses and so does any other literary material. It’s absolutely unrealistic to expect any book to movie adaptation to be 100% faithful to its source.
Hayter’s profound script? This was one of the most direct lifts of material since the first Harry Potter! It used to be when you copied someone elses writing it was plagiarism. Now it’s an adapted screenplay. Guess it took courage to remain true to the source material, but let’s not give too much credit. Most scenes just felt like everyone hitting the marks.
“The fact is WATCHMEN will turn out more like BLADE RUNNER.”
I’ve lurked here happily for years without ever feeling the need to contribute a post.
But that was certainly one of the funniest things I have ever read.