What will Watchmen end up doing at the box-office? Will it be a success or a box-office bust? How do you determine whether it’s a success or not?
Drew from HitFix.com tells me via Twitter a film “must earn two and a half times what it cost” to be determined a success. Peter from SlashFilm then says Watchmen cost $110-120 million to make before marketing when Devin from CHUD.com chimes in saying it cost more than that.
Let’s say Watchmen cost $150 million to make before marketing. Based on Drew’s number it’s going to need to make $375 million to be a “hit”. Peter points out we should take into consideration the film tie-in books and the upcoming five related DVD/BD releases. It’s a lot to consider and a major gamble for Warner Bros.
In an effort to gain an early opinion of the film SlashFilm has compiled a list of reviews from around the net.
People named Ramses II, Bentley Mustafa and Wiswart are who people are turning to for an early opinion as Warner Bros. has embargoed all reviewing media, which isn’t necessarily a good sign since the embargo on The Dark Knight was never really in place if we were to speak comparatively.
However, Warner Bros. isn’t counting on reviews as they seem to be saturating the market with content.
The image at the lead of this post are the six collectible “Entertainment Weekly” covers that will debut next week and you can click here to read the cover story early.
The clip to the right is a brand new peek at the film titled “Escape” that just debuted on Yahoo! and this comes in conjunction with the nine clips I just added to the site yesterday.
Then we have news from VH1 with Snyder saying, “The director’s cut is three hours and 10 minutes and comes out in July, [and it is] considerably more violent than this… and sexier.” When he says “comes out in July” he is talking about the DVD/BD release, but he is also on record saying if the film performs well in March there may be a New York and Los Angeles theatrical run of the extended director’s cut.
Of course this comes on the heels of a reveal from Collider who got word the director’s cut will hit DVD and Blu-ray in July and will then be followed by what Snyder has called a “Crazy Ultimate Freaky Edition” in the fall boasting such time-omitted extras as Tales of the Black Freighter, Hollis Mason’s death, more Manhattan moments on Mars and dialogue-heavy scenes with the newsstand-bonding Bernies.
If you are confused as to what Tales of the Black Freighter is you will be able to find out on March 24 when the animated companion feature hits Blu-ray and DVD 18 days after Watchmen hits the big screen. The synopsis for that release reads as follows:
They’re in the book. And on this disc. From the director of Watchmen and 300 come two tales from the celebrated graphic novel that do not appear in the extraordinary Watchmen Theatrical Feature. Tales of the Black Freighter (featuring the voice of 300‘s Gerard Butler) brings to strikingly animated life the novels richly layered story-within-a-story, a daring pirate saga whose turbulent events may mirror those in the Watchmen world. Stars from the Watchmen movie team in the amazing live-action/CGI Under the Hood, based on Nite Owl’s powerful first-hand account of how the hooded adventurers came into existence. Two fan-essential stories. One place to watch the excitement. Watching the Watchmen begins here.
You can watch the trailer right here and once the “Crazy Ultimate Freaky Edition” is released Black Freighter will be woven into the Watchmen narrative just as it is in the Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons graphic novel, which should certainly prove interesting.
So, how will this huge WB experiment turn out? Will the comic crowd like it enough to go back two and three times? Will the general public be intrigued enough by the trailers to give it a chance? Will the movie even be worth having a discussion?
If you don’t know the history of the film’s production I suggest you check out this article at Spill.com where they break down the development from its early days at Fox in 1986 with Terry Gilliam aboard to direct and rumored casting such as Robin Williams as Rorschach, Jamie Lee Curtis as The Silk Spectre, both Richard Gere and Kevin Costner as possible Nite Owls and Gary Busey as The Comedian.
Development then moved to Universal with David Hayter (X2) aboard to write and direct. Then it moved to Paramount where Darren Aronofsky was attached to direct followed by Paul Greengrass (Bourne Supremacy and Ultimatum). With Greengrass attached Paramount even launched an official website and CHUD.com ran a pair of interviews with him concerning the production (here’s part one and part two).
From that mess here we are. We have survived the Fox vs. Warner Bros. legal battle and only have a couple of weeks left before one version of the finished project hits theaters. Guess we will have to wait and see just how excited we are for everything else that is planned.
Stay tuned, it should be interesting.
