Steve Mason's Column

Surfer, you don't understand the mind of a red-blooded American adult male. Quite frankly, I don't either. It's all just sex, sports and having the stiff dick in the relationship.

Speaking AS an American, surf, I'm not sure how to respond to that. It is the largest SINGLE sporting event in the U.S. in the calendar year (unlike the World Series or the NBA Championships, which are best-of-seven). Nothing else even comes close. I myself usually try to watch it, but it's not the end-all, be-all of my Sunday.... except for this year, of course, since MY Cardinals are now in it for the first time since the Taft Administration.

How would it be in Australia if you guys made it to the World Cup final? Would that be an apt comparison?

Football is BIG here. Like, how other countries feel about soccer and the world cup, as Shryke pointed out, that's how we are about football. It is our most popular sport. This is the last football game people will get to see until September. It is the best of the best in the world for the sport. It is a national phenomenon. I think its a better reason to shut down the productivity of a country than say, something like New Year's Eve. The game has a rich history and tradition. It is also when the greatest advertisements of the year are broadcast, because the game always gets such high ratings. So people don't even want to leave the TV during the commercials. It is basically a holiday.

having the stiff dick in the relationship.

Well I would sure hope so....

Shrykespeare wrote:How would it be in Australia if you guys made it to the World Cup final? Would that be an apt comparison?

Living in New Zealand, I couldn't say....[GRIN].

I don't think soccer is the be all and end all of our lives either here (well certainly here, that'd be rugby - Amercian Football without the shoulder pads) or in the UK. Yes, there are a lot of fans, but the country would never shut down because of a sports game. At least I never remember it doing so. Most people just get on with their lives, we probably get 15 million out of 60 million watching the world cup. Hardly the kind of obsession the US apparently has with it. I guess you just like your sport a whole lot more.

silversurfer19 wrote:Seriously, I don't understand. I mean, do you guys do nothing at all on Sunday except lounge around and watch Super Bowl. I couldn't imagine an entire day wasted over a game of American Football (well, any sport for that matter). Does it really take over the entirety of US citizens lives? I couldn't imagine an entire country shutting down over something like that.

In one word yes!

I would say its 4th or 5th biggest holiday, well there are at least a few people who dont like it to keep the country running, but it's not like they have to do much, except for the pizza delivery guys. Ha Ha

undeadmonkey wrote:it's not like they have to do much, except for the pizza delivery guys. Ha Ha

Which I am, and which I will be doing, on Sunday. Sigh. Thank god for AM radio and TiVo.

[shamless plug]
Speaking of which, Domino's has unveiled six brand-new pizzas this week. My favorite is the Chicken Bacon Ranch pizza, which is a lot like their Chicken Bacon Ranch sandwich. It's chicken, bacon, sliced tomatoes and parsley on a garlic-parmesan sauce. It's terrific.
[/shameless plug]

Tip your driver please, they have mouths to feed too.

Here is Steve Mason's latest column for this weekend:

Rebooted Jason makes Crystal Lake a popular weekend destination: FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH set to win the President’s Day weekend box office battle!

by Steve Mason

Sometimes pre-release industry tracking points to a very clear box office winner, and that’s the case for the upcoming Valentine’s Day/President’s Day 4-day weekend. The reboot of Friday the Thirteenth (Warner Bros) appears to be headed for a resounding win with a possible $34.1M by Tuesday morning.

There is a fine distinction between a sequel, a remake and a reboot. Let’s deal with pictures in the horror genre. The Saw 2 through Saw 5 are sequels. The narratives clearly build on each other. Gus Van Sant’s 1998 version of a Psycho ($10M opening - $21.5M cume) was a remake (virtually shot for shot). Then there’s Rob Zombie’s 2007 Halloween ($26.3M opening - $58.2M cume), which is a reboot. Zombie abandoned all of the previous narrative from the eight prior Michael Myers slasher pics, and started brand new.

Although Godzilla ($44M opening - $136.3M cume ) was rebooted over a decade ago by Roland Emmerich, the modern “Reboot Revolution” really began in 2003, when Warner Bros began discussing a new version of Batman. When Christopher Nolan signed on to do Batman Begins, he couldn’t have realized that he would be revolutionizing the way major studios approach their most lucrative franchises.

With Christian Bale in the title role, Batman Begins was brilliant, taking the opportunity to start over by placing Bruce Wayne in a gritty Gotham City. Gone were the fanciful, stylized villains and gimmicks that began piling up in Tim Burton’s original 1989 feature and culminating with the ridiculous 1997 Joel Shumacher-directed Batman & Robin, featuring George Clooney as Batman, Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze and Uma Thurman as vegetative villain Poison Ivy. It was a joke, and Clooney has been cracking wise about it ever since. Batman Begins went on to gross $205M domestic, and Nolan’s follow-up, The Dark Knight, successfully enhanced the franchise exponentially to the tune of over $532.8M domestic.

Not all reboots work. The Incredible Hulk (Universal) opened last summer with $55.4M, but died quickly and was not embraced by hardcore fans. Meanwhile, Bryan Singer’s 2006 Superman Returns was a critical failure and commercial disappointment ($200M domestic), and now Warner Bros will essentially take a “mulligan,” rebooting again. Last August, WB President Jeff Robinov confirmed a new reboot with the Wall Street Journal saying that they will try “going dark to the extent that the characters allow it.”

If my forecast for Friday the Thirteenth is correct, it will be the sixth-best opening for a modern reboot and the best yet in the horror genre.


ALL-TIME TOP OPENINGS FOR FRANCHISE REBOOTS
1. The Incredible Hulk (2008) - $55.4M opening - $134.8M cume
2. Superman Returns (2006) - $52.5M opening - $200M cume
3. Batman Begins (2005) - $48.7M opening - $205.3M cume
4. Godzilla (1998) - $44M opening - $136.3M cume
5. Casino Royale (2006) - $40.8M opening - $167.4M cume
6. Friday the Thirteenth (2009) - $34.1M (predicted)
7. The Sum of All Fears (2002) - $31.1M opening - $118.9M cume
8. Halloween (2007) - $26.3M opening - $58.2M cume
9. The Pink Panther (2006) - $20.2M opening - $82.2M cume
10. The Punisher (2004) - $13.8M opening - $33.8M cume

[The above movies are not necessarily a definite list of reboots. As I write earlier, there is a fine line between reboot and remake, so you may have some additional movies that you would add.]
The Marcus Nispel-directed slasher pic set at the infamous Crystal Lake will also likely be among the top five President’s Day weekend openings ever.

ALL-TIME 4-DAY PRESIDENT’S DAY OPENINGS
1. Ghost Rider - $52M opening
2. 50 First Dates - $45.1M opening
3. Daredevil - $45M opening
4. Friday the Thirteenth - $34.1M (predicted)
5. Constantine - $33.6M opening
6. Jumper - $32.1M opening
7. Bridge to Terabithia - $28.5M opening
8. Eight Below - $25M opening
9. The Spiderwick Chronicles - $24.7M opening
10. John Q - $23.6M opening
This will be Jason’s twelfth movie outing, and he currently ranks as the all-time #3 grossing movie killer behind only Hannibal Lecter and Jigsaw from the Saw series.

All-Time Top 5 Franchise Killers – Cumulative Domestic Box Office
1. Hannibal Lecter – 5 movies - $425.3M
2. Jigsaw (Saw) - 5 movies - $342.5M
3. Jason (Friday the Thirteenth) – 11 movies - $315.6M
4. Freddy Krueger (Nightmare On Elm Street) – 8 movies - $307.4M
5. Michael Myers (Halloween) – 9 movies - $275.1M

More than just blood and gore will be successful over the holiday weekend. Disney has a promising chick flick called Confessions of a Shopaholic, based on the bestelling Sophie Kinsella novels. Isla Fisher, who played the nympho-girlfriend to Vince Vaughn’s scheming shyster in Wedding Crashers, is probably best-known in real-life as Borat’s fiancé (she is engaged to Sacha Baron Cohen and the couple has a child together), but she is a rising star. (Check out her engaging performance in the underrated 2007 thriller The Lookout.)

Critics are killing Confessions (21% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes), but tracking suggests that reviews won’t matter much. With the look of Sex & the City for the Under 25 crowd, more than a few guys will have to be dragged to see this one for Valentine’s Day, and I say it could hit $25M for 4 days.

Valentine’s Day will also boost Warner Bros holdover He’s Just Not That Into You to a solid second weekend. The Drew Barrymore-produced rom-com could add $21.25M by Tuesday morning. French import Taken (Fox) is holding like a champ and could deliver another $16.1M over the 4-day, followed by Henry Selick’s well-reviewed 3-D stop-action animated film Coraline (Focus), which seems headed for $14.1M or so to round out the top five.

The much older skewing Tom Tywker thriller The International (Sony), starring Oscar nominees Clive Owen (Closer) and Naomi Watts (21 Grams), is receiving decent reviews (56% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes), but I am told that tracking is soft. Despite a torn-from-the-headlines storyline – in many ways, the perfect movie plot for the current world financial crisis - my forecast is for $12.6M for 4 days.

FINAL PREDICTIONS FOR THE 4-DAY WEEKEND OF FEBRUARY 13-16
1. NEW – Friday the Thirteenth (Warner Bros) - $34.1M
2. NEW – Confessions of a Shopaholic (Disney) - $25M
3. He’s Just Not That Into You (Warner Bros) - $21.25M
4. Taken (Fox) - $16.1M
5. Coraline (Focus) - $14.1M
6. NEW – The International (Sony) - $12.6M
7. Pink Panther 2 (Sony) - $9.9M
8. Paul Blart: Mall Cop (Sony) - $9.25M
9. Push (Summit) - $7.3M
10. Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) - $6.2M
11. Gran Torino (Warner Bros) - $5.8M
12. The Uninvited (Dreamworks/Paramount) - $4.9M

They’re teen movie stars that wear purity rings: JONAS BROTHERS: THE 3-D CONCERT EXPERIENCE should easily win the weekend with a possible $30M!
by Steve Mason

Tween girls will unite this weekend and transform Kevin, Joe and Nick into box office stars. Last year, Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour ignited a box office wildfire with a $31.1M opening weekend despite only 683 3-D-equipped screens. Now Disney has the teen stars of the moment, Jonas Brothers, in the same sort of concert movie vehicle. The difference is that Jonas Brothers: The 3-D Concert Experience will open on about twice as many screens.


The precise number of 3-D screens is difficult to pinpoint. Last month, Lionsgate confirmed 1,033 Digital 3-D runs for the remake of My Bloody Valentine, and although I have not been able to confirm a hard number for Coraline (Focus), it was probably close to 1,100. Now, as the expensive $100K per screen digital conversion creeps along for exhibitors, Jonas Brothers could reach 1,200 3-D screens. Unlike Coraline, the new Disney concert movie will not be boosted by traditional 2-D 35MM playdates.

They have sold millions of records, packed them in at concerts across America, have a loyal fan base of screaming teenage girls, and they seem to be good kids. Their Dad is a former Assembly of God minister, and they were home-schooled by their folks. Famously, they wear purity rings, promising to remain virgins until they get married. When asked about the rings, 18-year-old Joe Jonas told Newsweek, “Our parents asked if we wanted to, and we were, like, ‘Yeah,’ so it’s awesome.”

As good practicing Evangelical Christian, these kids are tithing too. Jonas Brothers earned $12M in 2007, and they donated 10% to their Change for the Children Foundation, which offers support to other charities like St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the American Diabetes Association (Nick Jonas was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes in November of 2005).


Tracking shows that the audience for Jonas Brothers: The 3-D Concert Experience will be almost exclusively Females Under 25 and their Moms, and this picture has a strong shot at a spectacular $25K per screen for a $30M opening weekend. Take that with a grain of salt because movie-after-movie has out-performed expectations this year.

Last week’s #1 movie Madea Goes To Jail (Lionsgate) is in for a 60% drop from its meteoric start. The latest from Tyler Perry Studios will possibly add another $16.2M for a second place finish. Academy Award winner Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) will sing Jai Ho as it pops to third place, up as much as 14% from Oscar weekend. The target for Danny Boyle’s gutty, little Best Picture winner is $9.5M, which would push the $14M movie to almost $113M in the US.

Luc Besson’s Taken (Fox) will crash through the $100M barrier on Friday and seems destined for #4 with about $7.25M, which would push this French action import to $105M domestic to go along with the $70M achieved in foreign markets. Meanwhile, the Jonas Brothers have stolen virtually all of the 3-D screens from Coraline (Focus). Henry Selick’s spectacular stop-action animation instant classic will tumble a possible 50% to about $6M (a far cry from the more friendly 12% and 22% drops from the last two weekends). Still if my number hits, Coraline will have a new domestic cume of almost $62M compared to its budget of $60M.
The other new wide release is Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, which Fox has pared down to about 1,000 playdates, is a non-starter. According to pre-release industry tracking the video game adaptation seems headed for a sub-$5M start.

FINAL PREDICTED GROSSES FOR FEBRUARY 27-MARCH 1
1. NEW – Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience (Disney) - $30M
2. Madea Goes To Jail (Lionsgate) - $16.2M
3. Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) - $9.5M
4. Taken (Fox) -$7.25M
5. Coraline (Focus) - $6M
6. He’s Just Not That Into You (Warner Bros) - $5.1M
7. Friday The Thirteenth (Warner Bros) - $4.35M
8. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Disney) - $4.3M
9. Paul Blart: Mall Cop (Sony) - $4.2M
10. NEW – Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (Fox) - $4M
11. Fired Up (Sony) - $2.8M
12. The International (Sony) - $2.75M

Whatever Jonas Brothers gets this weekend, who wants to take bets on how much it will plummet next week? 60%? 70%? 80%?

I'm not so sure. Watchmen is hardly going to take its audience away next weekend, and it will still hold the majority of 3D locations, so maybe it won't be as bad as we are expecting?

I'd say 60%, about the same as Madea will drop this weekend.

66%, these sorts always fall hard

It'll drop hard but it's not going to drop as hard as Friday the 13th.

RAINING CASH IN HOLLYWOOD!: The stock market is down, but the movie business is up 14% over ‘08 and 23% over ‘07!by Steve Mason

Hollywood is off to a staggering, record-breaking start in 2009 led by Clint Eastwood’s most successful wide opening ever, a French action import and a chubby guy on a Segway. Hot on the heels of the biggest January in history with over $1 billion in domestic sales, February has exceeded $750M in the US. The industry’s all-time best January followed by the all-time biggest February on the books puts total domestic box office for the year at almost $1.8 billion.

“Everything is working.” That’s what one studio exec told me today. “With the exception of the Jonas Brothers, it seems like almost every release is out-performing expectations.” January 2009 has gone down as the all-time 8th-best month in modern box office history. It started with excellent holiday holdovers. Six movies, technically released in 2008, did major chunks of their business after New Year’s.

2008 RELEASES WITH MORE THAN $50M IN 2009 TICKET SALES
1. Gran Torino (Warner Bros) - $132.7M
2. Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) - $92.8M
3. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Paramount) - $72.7M
4. Marley & Me (Fox) - $69.5M
5. Bedtime Stories (Disney) - $52.75M


Then there was the surprise phenomenon of Paul Blart: Mall Cop (Sony), a low budget comedy from producer Adam Sandler and starring former King of Queens star Kevin James. The movie opened to over $30M on the weekend of January 16, and it is now closing in on $130M. The other $100M hit so far in 2009 is Taken (Fox), the Luc Besson-produced French import, which delivered excellent grosses in Europe before landing in the US. With a star turn by Liam Neeson, Taken had already delivered $11.2M in the UK, $9.4M in France and $5.5M in Spain before it went wide in the US on January 30. The picture has held up extraordinarily well with $108M domestic to-date.

The movie industry is 14% ahead of last year’s January-February take of $1.5 billion and a full 23% stronger than the first two months of 2007, which posted just over $1.35 billion. It’s fair to start speculating about the possibility that 2009 will be Hollywood’s all-time box office high water mark.

March has a definite shot at topping $800M, which would be a third straight monthly record. Watchmen (Warner Bros) looks huge starting Friday (I’ll post a prediction later in the week), Last House on the Left (Universal) appears to be a solid genre pic on Friday, March 13th, along with Disney’s excellent family offering Race to Witch Mountain. On March 20, Duplicity (Universal) starring Julia Roberts and Clive Owen, has 25+ appeal and Dreamworks/Paramount is sky-high about I Love You Man. And the month rounds out with Monsters vs. Aliens from Dreamworks Animation.

Back-to-back-to-back all-time monthly records and almost $2.6 billion in the bank by March 31 would be further proof that the movie business is recession-proof. In fact, the more dreary the economic news becomes, the more Americans seek refuge at movies. Instead of the annual trip to Disney World or a getaway cruise in the Bahamas, people seem to be spending their pocket change at America’s multiplexes in droves.




How 'bout THEM apples?

It will take more than WATCHMEN writer Moore’s curse to keep Zack Snyder’s adaptation from topping $60M!
by Steve Mason


Watchmen (Warner Bros) has followed a long and winding road, passing through the hands of some remarkable directors like Terry Gilliam (The Fisher King), Darren Aronofsky (The Wrestler) and Paul Greengrass (United 93), before landing in the lap of the mastermind behind 2004’s stunning re-imagining of Dawn of the Dead and 2007’s March blockbuster 300. From the moment that the first trailer for Zack Snyder’s $120M comic book adaptation made its debut at midnight screenings of The Dark Knight in July, this has been a sure-fire mega-hit. Now, the big screen version of the 1986 graphic novel will be unleashed on Friday.

The original comic was written by Alan Moore and the lead artist was Dave Gibbons. The collaborators have radically different views of Snyder’s film adaptation.The latter has publicly expressed confidence in Snyder. Gibbons reveals to Wired magazine that at one point Joel Silver owned the film rights to Watchmen and that the producer was insistent that Arnold Schwarzenegger should play Dr. Manhattan. (That would have potentially been an unintentional disaster movie.)

The artist says although he never had much to do with previous attempts to make the movie “I’ve been quite involved with the Zack Snyder one. I introduced myself to him at the U.K. premier of 300, and right from the very beginning we kind of hit it off, and I really had that gut feeling that he was going to do it properly. And I must say everything that I’ve seen since has only increased my confidence, to the point that I just think it’s a wonderfully fortuitous piece of timing and the right man at the right place at the right time.”

Moore, however, is very different kind of dude. On one hand, his story Watchmen has been named one of the top 100 English language novels ever written by Time Magazine, ranking alongside Harper Lee, John Steinbeck, George Orwell and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Simultaneously, he reportedly considers himself to be a warlock and has placed a curse on Snyder’s movie. The writer tells the LA Times that his philosophy about Hollywood. “It spoon-feeds us, which has the effect of watering down our collective cultural imagination. It is as if we are freshly hatched birds looking up with our mouths open waiting for Hollywood to feed us more regurgitated worms. The Watchmen film sounds like more regurgitated worms. I for one am sick of worms.”

A number of Moore-written comics have made the jump to the big screen, including V for Vendetta (excellent movie), From Hell (a mess), Constantine (more of a mess) and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (complete disaster), and he claims that he has never seen any of them. According to its author, his classic graphic novel Watchmen is “inherently unfilmable.”

So, it is Zack Snyder vs. Alan Moore’s curse. Warlock or not, the industry pre-release tracking is sky high. In surveying my normal studio contacts Wednesday, the lowest prediction I could find was for a $55M opening weekend. One exec at a competing studio thinks that $70M-$75M is “in the bag,” but I’m going with a number a few ticks lower. The 163 minute running time will give the movie fewer showtimes overall and that sort of running time generally hurts late show business. I’m calling for $63M for 3 days.

If that number hits, Watchmen would post the all-time #3 March opening, trailing only Snyder’s 300 ($70.8M) and Ice Age: The Meltdown ($68M). It would also be the all-time fourth-best 1st quarter opening for Hollywood also finishing behind 2004’s The Passion of the Christ ($83.8M).

Curse…Schmurse.

FINAL PREDICTION FOR MARCH 6-8
1. NEW – Watchmen (Warner Bros) - $63M
2. Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail (Lionsgate) - $11.5M
3. Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) - $9M
4. Taken (Fox) - $7M
5. Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience (Disney) - $6.75M
6. He’s Just Not That Into You (Warner Bros) - $4.2M
7. Paul Blart: Mall Cop (Sony) - $3.9M
8. Coraline (Focus) - $3.2M
9. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Diney) - $3.1M
10. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (Fox) - $2.1M



So there you have it, Fantaverse. Will that end a lot of the second-guessing?

Well, I for one would LOVE to think that Watchmen can pull in that much for its opening 3-day, despite the fact that I've dumped it from all but three of my slates in the January and February Super Leagues. But I just don't know at this point. Call it a $57.5M opening, $143.5M total earnings. In other words, a spectacular bust... A film that just won't translate into the general moviegoing population.

I would LOVE to be wrong, though. Two weeks ago I was calling for a $71.0M - $83.0M opening and just under $200M in total grosses. Can we, erm, turn back the clock?


Hey, check it: It's just twelve hours to midnight.

WATCHMEN with $25.2M opening day, but “ticking downward,” now targeting $57M 3-day & $145M domestic!
by Steve Mason

“Who is watching the Watchmen?” Just about everyone…or so it seems.

The brand new film adaptation of the classic graphic comic Watchmen is a hit of monstrous proportions on its opening weekend, but not everyone loves it. In fact, not only is there a prominent character named Rohrschach (played by Oscar nominee Jackie Earle Haley), the film itself is serving as a Rohrschach Test for critics, fanboys and the broader public.

The Zack Snyder-directed $120M epic started with $4.5M in Thursday midnight business which is outstanding. There was no way for Watchmen to approach the $18.5M midnight start for last summer’s The Dark Knight. First off, it is March and not the middle of summer blockbuster season. Kids have school. People are working. These are not the lazy days of July when it is easier for many to see a movie at midnight on Thursday, and hit the office late on Friday. The other factor is the movie’s rating. This is an R-rated movie, not PG-13 like The Dark Knight.

The Thursday night start for Watchmen was 44% better than the $2.5M midnight shows for director Snyder’s last epic 300 (also rated R). It was also virtually double the $2.3M midnight start for November’s Quantum of Solace (PG-13). Those are much better comparables than The Dark Knight or say last year’s PG-13 rated Twilight, which grabbed a reported $7M midnight preview gross.

Watchmen was spectacular at the box office Friday, and, after consulting with multiple sources, I am projecting a staggering $25.2M (that does include midnight previews) for Friday. That is approximately the 32nd-best opening day in modern box office history, but it is the all-time #12 opening day for a non-sequel.

ALL-TIME TOP 15 OPENING DAYS FOR A NON-SEQUEL
1. Spider-Man - $39.4M
2. Twilight - $35.9M
3. Iron Man - $35.2M
4. Harry Potter & the Sorcerer’s Stone - $32.3M
5. The Simpsons Movie - $30.7M
6. I Am Legend - $30M
7. The Da Vinci Code - $28.6M
8. 300 - $28.1M
9. Transformers - $27.8M
10. Sex & The City - $26.7M
11. The Passion of the Christ - $26.5M
12. Watchmen - $25.2M (projected)
13. Planet of the Apes - $24.6M
14. Hulk - $24.2M
15. The Day After Tomorrow - $23.5M

When the numbers get this big, and the movie is this front-loaded, 3-day projections are problematic, and I am revising downward from the $62.5M I published Friday night (my final prediction on published Wednesday was $63M). It’s looking more like $57M as of Saturday morning. Running time is killing this movie. If the number holds, it would still give Watchmen the all-time #5 opening weekend for an R-rated movie, trailing only Matrix Reloaded, Passion of the Christ (which had better source material contrary to what fanboys may believe), Snyder’s 300 and Hannibal.

ALL-TIME TOP 10 OPENINGS FOR AN R-RATED MOVIE
1. The Matrix Reloaded - $91.7M
2. The Passion of the Christ - $83.8M
3. 300 - $70.8M
4. Hannibal - $58M
5. Watchmen - $57M (projected)
6. Sex & The City - $57M
7. 8 Mile - $51.2M
8. Wanted - $50.9M
9. The Matrix Revolutions - $48.5M
10. Troy - $46.8M

One interesting facet of this movie is the fact that three different major studios have a piece of the action. Warner Bros owns domestic distribution rights, Paramount has the foreign and Fox, which won a very public battle over the rights to the movie, is getting 5%-8.5% of gross participation that will be set by the film’s worldwide revenue success. That puts an awful lot of powerful Hollywood types on the same team, working to ensure Warchmen’s success.

Critics are divided about Watchmen as a movie. The movie has a 65% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but the most established critics – what Rotten Tomatoes classifies as the Cream of the Crop – has generated a lower 43% positive reviews. Here’s a sampling from writers that I know and like.

Joe Morgenstern of the Wall Street Journal –
“The reverence is inert, the violence noxious, the mythology murky, the tone grandiose, the texture glutinous. It’s an alternate version of The Incredibles minus the delight.”

Pete Hammond, Hollywood.com -
“A stunning, mind-bending, breathtaking densely-packed motion picture experience.”

David Poland, Movie City News -
“The problem with Watchmen is, in the end, that it is a bit of a big stiff bore for two acts with an improved, but mostly uninspired third act. Look at Watchmen from the back to the front. Do you care about what has happened to any of these characters, except Rorschach, by the time you leave the theater?”

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times -
“After the revelation of The Dark Knight here is Watchmen, another bold exercise in the liberation of the superhero movie. It’s a compelling visceral film.”


Obviously, the reviews are all over the board. Although, there’s no question that the writer of the original Watchmen graphic novel, the enigmatic Alan Moore, hates the movie, it’s just as certain that he has not and will never see it. In fact, he put a curse on the whole project.

Director Zack Snyder signed on for a gig that proved too tough and too problematic for the likes of brilliant filmmakers like Terry Gilliam (The Fisher King, Twelve Monkeys), Darren Aronofsky (The Wrestler, The Fountain) and Paul Greengrass (United 93, The Bourne Ultimatum). Perhaps Alan Moore is right. His book is “inherently unfilmable.” There’s no way to pack the dense details of the brilliant 1986 landmark into a movie – even when it’s 2 hours, 43 minutes long.

I am a huge fan of the graphic novel having read it in college. I deliberately didn’t re-read Watchmen in advance of the movie because I think it needs to be judged as its own individual piece of work. Snyder’s problem all along has been, “How do you make a movie that both satisfies hardcore fans and is accessible enough for people who have never even heard of Watchmen?”

For the time being, the spectacle, the buzz, the fanboy fervor and a pitch-perfect marketing campaign have set the stage for an historic 3-day opening. Once the mainstream audience discovers that Watchmen is more about ideas than it is about heroes with capes, it will be interesting to see how it holds up. For comparison’s sake, 300 fell 53% from its opening weekend of $70.8M, but the drop-off will almost certainly be bigger here.

300 ended up at $210.6M domestic and $456M worldwide, but Watchmen is likely to fall short of those numbers. In fact, whereas 300 finished with a 2.97 multiple (2.97 X $70.8M = total domestic box), Watchmen is more likely to be in the 2.4-2.6 range. That would translate to a, still impressive, final US gross of $137M-$148M. Given that spring break is coming for high schoolers and college kids, I think the movie can reach the upper end of that range.

EXCLUSIVE STEVE MASON EARLY FRIDAY ESTIMATES
1. NEW - Watchmen (Warner Bros) - $25.2M, $6,979 PTA, $25.2M cume
2. Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes To Jail (Lionsgate) - $2.5M, $1,162 PTA, $70.2M cume
3. Taken (Fox) - $2.3M, $763 PTA, $112.9M cume
4. Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) - $2.05M, $709 PTA, $120.56M cume
5. He’s Just Not That Into You (Warner Bros) - $1.3M, $532 PTA, $81.92M cume
6. Paul Blart: Mall Cop (Sony) - $1.1M, $430 PTA, $130.5M cume
7. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Disney) - $1M, $437 PTA, $36.2M cume
8. Fired Up (Sony) - $920,000, $512 PTA, $11.68M cume
9. Jonas Brothers: The 3-D Concert Experience (Disney) - $850,000, $666 PTA, $14.85M cume
10. Coraline (Focus) - $800,000, $408 PTA, $63.1M cume


EXCLUSIVE STEVE MASON EARLY 3-DAY ESTIMATES
1. NEW - Watchmen (Warner Bros) - $57M, $15,785 PTA, $57M cume
2. Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes To Jail (Lionsgate) - $9M, $4,184 PTA, $76.7M cume
3. Taken (Fox) - $7.75M, $2,570 PTA, $118.04M cume
4. Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) - $7.58M, $2,625 PTA, $126.1M cume
5. Paul Blart: Mall Cop (Sony) - $4.5M, $1,759 PTA, $133.5M cume
6. He’s Just Not That Into You (Warner Bros) - $4.05M, $1,659 PTA, $84.68M cume
7. Coraline (Focus) - $3.5M, $1,787 PTA, $66M cume
8. Jonas Brothers: The 3-D Concert Experience (Disney) - $3.1M, $2,380 PTA, $17M cume
9. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Disney) - $3M, $1,310 PTA, $38.5M cume
10. Fired Up (Sony) - $2.75M, $1,520 PTA, $13.5M cume


I guessed $58 million in my column. Did anyone get closer than that?

We-e-ell, now that you mention it... Check the post just above yours, Shryke, ol' buddy. On Thursday, around about an hour after you reprinted Mase's (admittedly, conservative, even by the conventional wisdom of rival studios' projections) "It will take more than...Moore...to keep [Watchmen] from topping $60M!" column, that predicted $63M for the adaptation's opening-weekend three-day (including Friday midnight screenings), yours truly "called" Zack Snyder's would-be masterstroke for "a $57.5M opening, $143.5M total earnings. In other words, a spectacular bust...that just won't translate into the general moviegoing population".

BOM's latest estimates call for something in the area of $55.7M, Friday midnight through Sunday night, but they could still be off by as much as six or seven per cent (either way). My bet is that Watchmen's numbers will slip some on Sunday and that it will wind up somewhere around $54.5M total for its three-day opening weekend, a figure that will be shockingly soft to many industry observers. Further, I think the model here won't be Snyder's previous blockbuster effort 300, but rather 2006's V for Vendetta, another Alan Moore adaptation that disappointed financially, at least initially. In fact, I shouldn't at all be surprised to see Watchmen drop substantially -- even massively -- in its next several weeks in release: Vendetta managed only $12.3M in its second weekend, a nearly 52% fall-off, and plunged by at least one-third in eight out of its first nine post-opening weekends, finally resurging a bit over the long Memorial Day weekend. Watchmen may not even make it that far in the nation's first-run theaters. Conventional wisdom at this juncture would indicate slightly over $150M in total Watchmen grosses. I'm going to lowball it here, and predict that Watchmen will struggle to top $140M, and may actually wind up in the mid-$130s... If not quite a box-office bomb, at least a fairly substantial dud. Fox may have done the smart thing by settling for a portion of total grosses, since profits may be frankly nonexistent ahead of Watchmen's eventual DVD push.

None of which is meant to say that Watchmen is a bad adaptation, or a film unworthy of public acclaim or box-office success. As I know I've said before, I just think it's going to fail, and quite spectacularly, in attracting key youth demographics that turn niche films into mainstream blockbusters. It will also fail to claim that broad but fickle ground between the genre film and the date movie, and will not hold up to repeated viewings. That means its appeal is frankly limited to youthful fanboys, aging Gen-Xer males and certain of the literati... A thin, enthusiastic slice of the general population that will see the film early, but not necessarily often. A frankly lethal Hellboy II-esque 70% drop in Watchmen's second weekend, all but condemning the film to the low $100Ms, would not astonish me; at this point, I'll give that disturbing possibility one chance in three. No matter its final opening-weekend numbers, if Watchmen manages to exceed $22M in its second weekend, I will be very, very surprised.



Maybe they should have all bought tickets

Remember, though, that Hellboy 2 dropped for a reason. It's core audience had TDK to watch. Otherwise I'm sure Hellboy would have seen the usual 40-50% drop. I think Watchmen won't see a massive drop like that. Note that audience figures are picking up this year- most people seem to be going to the movies despite the recession (it's cheaper than going out to a restaurant). Plus, there's not much choice this weekend for that audience to be attracted to- maybe a horror flick, but that's it.

Outstanding comments about Golden Army, Six, I heartily concede that you have a solid point, there. However, I'm still going to forecast a fairly brutal plunge for Watchmen in its second weekend: 67% or thereabouts, comparable to Dungeons & Dragons, X-Men 3, Red Planet, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within and Cloverfield, five other genre films (though I may be offending some folks when I use that term to describe Planet, a.k.a. Kilmer's Folly) that failed to appeal to the mainstream theatrical-release consumer. An American-economy-sized cliff-dive of THAT magnitude, indicating an approximate $18.5M haul in the film's second weekend, would substantially handicap Watchmen's long-term forecast, perhaps stalling the adaptation short of $115M. Again, I give this possibility one chance in three.

On a related note, BOM has once again revised its weekend figures, and, as I had predicted yesterday, downward once again for Watchmen (though only about one-third as much as I had thought they might). It's now at $55.2M, roughly comparable to the three-day openings of last year's The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian and The Incredible Hulk. It's worth noting that neither of those films reached $150M domestically, despite opening during the first half of the summer movie season. Although Watchmen will face somewhat less competition in the short term than either Hulk or Narnia, it's an open question whether spring breakers, financially unable to spring for vacations on the Gulf Coast or Atlantic Seaboard and frightened away from Mexico by rising drug-trade violence and kidnappings of foreigners, will decide to spend their days off in movie theaters. I personally think they will, but that they'll also be far more likely to indulge in the cheap thrills of Last House on the Left (whose stock, amazingly enough, is rising almost daily) or the familiar comfort of Disney's Race to Witch Moutain, than take a chance on the sober, dour, relentless Cold War Watchmen. But, hey, I could be wrong.

I think Watchmen will probably beat Last House to the Number Two spot this coming weekend, but only barely, and I actually would not be all that amazed to see Watchmen fall completely out of the Top Five in Weekend 3.

But, hey, again, fifteen or so days ago I was calling for as much as an $83M opening and a total domestic haul somewhere in the $190M-$210M range. So much for that, huh? All I'm certain of at THIS point is that Watchmen will widely be considered a bust. I'm starting to think that we may not see quite so many first-quarter high-profile releases in future: No more 300, Cloverfield or Watchmen, since the strategy of counterprogramming the usual craptastic Q1 fare has not resulted in consistently positive outcomes thus far.


Coming to theaters 3/11/2012: Zack Snyder's Groo. Starring Brad Pitt as Arcadio, Scarlett Johansson as Chakaal, Bruce Campbell as Taranto, John de Lancie as The Minstrel, Brian Cox as The Sage, Helena Bonham Carter as Grooella, Enzo as Rufferto, and Ray Stevenson as Groo.

Well I can tell you one thing, I will be seeing it again. And I didn't even think it was that special. I want to see if the second time around I can just watch it for what it is and stop nitpicking the whole damn time.