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Watchmen 50 Days On, Was It Worth the Gamble?
brumgrunt writes "Friday marks the 50th day on general release for what was the long-awaited Watchmen movie. But how much money has it made, and how has it measured up to Warner Bros' expectations? Has it, bluntly, been worth the gamble, expense and hassle? "
When Watchmen shot out of the blocks to an opening weekend of $55m in the US back at the start of March, there were some mutterings of discontent that this wasn't quite the kind of number that Warner Bros was looking for.
Well, to be fair, stateside that puts it at #6 for opening weekend for a Rated R movie. And 64th overall. Worldwide so far it's sitting at $180+ million and, like the article said, DVD and Blu-Ray sales often make a big difference.
... so what is the problem exactly? You've made the #6 most popular R rated movie by opening weekend in the United States. Job well done. I assure you that DVD and Blu-Ray sales will net you a lot of money. Especially with that Curse of the Black Freighter stuff you withheld from the movie.
I've heard that the estimated budget was $100 million. So they've made $80 million over that
It was always going to be a harder sell than a Batman or Spider-man movie ...
For the love of all things binary, I thought it was common knowledge that you cannot compare rated R movies to PG-13 movies. Every single Batman & Spider-man movie has been rated below R.
The movie did well and I'm sure it was worth it.
My work here is dung.
>I've heard that the estimated budget was $100 million. So they've made $80 million over that ...
>so what is the problem exactly?
The usual rule of thumb is that a film needs to make 2.5-3 times it's budget before it's profitable - that allows for everyone in the chain, cinemas etc to get their cut. As such, Watchman needs to make around $300m before it makes the studio happy.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
I don't know what city you live in, but $8.33 for a movie is unheard of where I am. You're looking at around $10 for a ticket. That's $240 for a year of movie tickets for two people. Throw in gas and an occasional soda, popcorn, or snack at theater and you've easily paid for that $300 TV.
12 matinee tickets at $6 a pop is $72. For 2 people, that's $144. For 3 people, it is $216.
Insist on some snacks and you can easily add $50 per person (this can vary wildly, carry in a can of pop and some jelly beans and you are talking about less than $10).
If you are paying less than $6 per show, you aren't in the majority.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
There's already three announced.
You got your vanilla release, your director's cut and your director's complete cut which'll have Black Freighter interwoven with the Watchmen story.
People with actual brainwaves just time a movie visit to be after a meal, or they sneak in their own snacks.
I believe with marketing, and the fact that FOX wanted their pound of flesh, it was closer to 200 million.
That's 38 million, sorry for the typo.
Yeah because its sensible for a dork ass like you to think going to the movies by yourself is what most people do.
The sensible assumption is that "going to the movies" usually equates with being with another person, many times a female at that.
For two people to go to the movies, buy popcorn and a soda, costs around $40. Times 12, thats $480. The price of an HDTV.
Example: daughter wants to see Twilight. OK. Fine, we all make compromises for the people we love.
Tickets: $11 adult $8 kid. So: $30 tickets.
child, wife and self insist on popcorn, drinks, etc. I've memorised the price: $24.15
So, one afternoon movie experience: $54.15.
Also: transportation: 2 adults one child on subway. $2.75 per adult, 75cent child, each way. Total: $12.50. Add that on.
$66.65 to go see a movie.
x12 months = $799.80
I can wander down the street to that shithole of a Best Buy and get a 32" LCD HDTV for $469.
That would leave plenty of money to rent videos.
And I wouldn't have to deal with the mouth breathing retard behind me yapping through the whole fucking movie.
And when you glare at him and tell him to shut the fuck up, he feels ENTITLED to continue flapping his insolent stupidities.
I hate going to the movies. The movies are fine, and fun. The audiences make me ill.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
There is a reason for this, the expectation of watching in a Movie Theater is different from watch at home on DVD
For Movie Theaters there is an expected time span, expected content (enough "backstory" so people who just decided on a whim to see it will understand what's going on, but not all the small nuances that true fans enjoy), and rated low enough to grab the widest audience.
For DVDs there is an expectation for in-depth information (commentaries, blooper reels, featuretts, etc.), more freedom given to time span (put it on pause for a bathroom break, or sit down tomorrow night and select the chapter you left off at), and a bigger market for rated R or 'unrated' material (Unrated editions of just about every movie ever made, and they're selling them at Wallmart!)
So, while it is an 'incomplete' movie as far as comparing it to the directors cut, it is complete as far as Movie Theater expectations.
DEMETRIUS: Villain, what hast thou done?
AARON: Villain, I have done thy mother.
Shakespeare invents 'your mom'
Apparently the Extended version will run up to an hour longer than the Theatrical cut.
While the Watchmen movie wasn't perfect, and while it might not have earned as much as they wanted it to; I fully expect the DvD version of the movie to sell very very well.
The Long Now Foundation
Kevin Bolk is drawing "Watchbabies" strips on his art site. They're actually quite funny.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Oh they profit from the investment, it's only on paper that they don't profit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting
Basically if you give all the money to other companies that arent your company but really are because you are both owned by the same people, you've on paper lost a ton of money (they call it gross), but that's only on paper.
Whats funny to me is that after screwing over the author of Forest Gump, the studios approached him for rights to the sequel. As the wiki page mentions, he told them he "he cannot in good conscience allow money to be wasted on a failure." So, good job guys, you've ensured you're never going to make money from the second movie.
I swear if people across this country put half the thought into their buisness that they do into how to cheat their way into more money, we'd have no economic troubles and would nationally be 10 trillion in black rather than in red. And we'd have much better movies.
Scenes, actually. It's changed at that level of granularity, which explains some of the pacing issues I suppose. In terms of composition and dialogue it follows the comic more or less exactly except for omissions of 5- or 10-minute chunks, when arguably it could've done with a significant restructuring.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
"hamburger thieves"?
You're obviously referring to Hamburglars...
That would be LucasFILM... not LucasARTS. Lucasarts makes video games and were one of the best studios around until they started churning 100% Star Wars crap....
Lucasfilm once had some of the best films under its belt until it started churning out Star Wars "prequel" crap..
Hmmm... I see a pattern emerging.....
For the love of all things binary, I thought it was common knowledge that you cannot compare rated R movies to PG-13 movies. Every single Batman & Spider-man movie has been rated below R.
Let's compared it with Sin City then. Data from imdb:
Watchmen
Released: March 6, 2009
Budget: $100,000,000 (estimated)
Opening Weekend
$55,214,334 (USA) (8 March 2009) (3,611 Screens)
£3,243,001 (UK) (8 March 2009) (419 Screens)
Gross
$106,418,446 (USA) (12 April 2009)
Source: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0409459/business (TFA data may be more current than this)
Sin City
Released: April 1, 2005
Budget: $40,000,000 (estimated)
Opening Weekend
$29,120,273 (USA) (3 April 2005) (3,230 Screens)
£2,452,299 (UK) (5 June 2005) (395 Screens)
Gross
$74,098,862 (USA) (7 August 2005) <- 129 days after opening
$12,300,000 (Worldwide) (5 June 2005) (except USA) <- 66 days after opening
Source: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0401792/business
Not that I know if that 2.5 factor is correct, but "Make a profit" doesn't mean "no losses"... it means having the move perform adequately as an investment given its risk. Investors need at least as much money as they would have gotten in some other comparable (risk-wise) investment. If the returns are too low it would have been better to put the money in safer investments that would have yielded the same profit.
As a Slashdot discussion grows longer, the probability of an analogy involving cars approaches one.
Well hi there!
I'm the web admin for Interrobang Studios. We're grateful that people have been interested in Kevin's work doing Watchbabies comics. Since a lot of folks are interested in this strip, we'll be publishing a comic of the Watchbabies strips in the near future.
Right now we're actually in the process of a major site re-org (specifically to get more content like Watchbabies on-site). Anybody who's interested in watchbabies updates can e-mail watchbabies@interrobangstudios.com or subscribe to the Interrobang Studios RSS feed (http://www.interrobangstudios.com/rss.php)
~D
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