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Box Office Update: Watchmen Ticking Downward, Now Targeting $57M Weekend & $145M Domestic

Posted on Saturday, March 7th, 2009 by Steve Mason

watchmen bomb

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 lat 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

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  • [A]
    I hope it kills in the box office. it's not a masterpiece but it's still very good
  • i agree 100 percent. the reason it's unfilmable is because the comic holds so much that couldn't be pushed through a film.
  • vva
    I think it's WAY too early to predict its final domestic tally. Let's wait until next weekend to see how it holds.
  • Joe
    I just let out a "Whoa." when I saw that Jonas Brothers fell to #9. Coraline's gonna whip it this weekend? Who knew?
  • ......
    they're number 8
  • Zinc
    Steve, I am sorry, but following your reports and the final numbers, you have been continuously wrong nearly every week. I am sorry again, but I could do your job better. You are dead wrong about these numbers. For example, I remember you predicted 4 million one week for Slumdog a few weeks ago, when it made 8 million. Or when your prediction for Medea was way below what it should have been, and it ended up making like $41 million. Or just last week, when you predicted Jonas Brothers to easily lead the box office, when it totally failed to.
  • .........
    there is a word...what is it?....hmmm....oh yeah, SURPRISE. sometimes movies surprise people. i think most people would have thought the jonas brothers were gonna lead also. who excpected all those little kids to not see the movie for the number 1 band the world.

    if you can do so much better why dont you start tkig a stab at it. geeze, moron.
  • Actually Steve Mason's predictions are among the best. I know only one source that is slightly more accurate. For me box office numbers are one of the most interesting topics. It's fascinating to compare the expectations against the actual results. Sometimes a movie is a huge hit beyond the wildest expectations while other movies are devastating flops. People are no robots. There are always uncertainties, but they are the reason why this is so interesting.

    So my other source prediced this prior to the respective opening weekends:
    * 34M opening and 70M cume for Jonas Brothers. Everybody expected them to rule the weekend and I have still no idea why they failed to do so.
    * 31M opening and 60M cume for Madea Goes to Jail. Just the same level as the other entries in the series (Family Reunion had 30M). We all know it did better than expected. Seemingly Tyler Perry succeeded to build a loyal fanbase with his movies and he's just huge at the moment.

    If you know any source with better predictions please let me know. Or post your own in the future. I would be interested.
  • Actually Steve Mason's predictions are among the best. I know only one source that is slightly more accurate. For me box office numbers are one of the most interesting topics. It's fascinating to compare the expectations against the actual results. Sometimes a movie is a huge hit beyond the wildest expectations while other movies are devastating flops. People are no robots. There are always uncertainties, but they are the reason why this is so interesting.

    So my other source prediced this prior to the respective opening weekends:
    * 34M opening and 70M cume for Jonas Brothers. Everybody expected them to rule the weekend and I have still no idea why they failed to do so.
    * 31M opening and 60M cume for Madea Goes to Jail. Just on the same level as the other entries in the series (Family Reunion had 30M). We all know it did better than expected. Seemingly Tyler Perry succeeded to build a loyal fanbase with his movies and he's just huge at the moment.

    If you know any source with better predictions please let me know. Or post your own in the future. I would be interested.
  • Actually Steve Mason's predictions are among the best. I know only one source that is slightly more accurate. For me box office numbers are one of the most interesting topics. It's fascinating to compare the expectations against the actual results. Sometimes a movie is a huge hit beyond the wildest expectations while other movies are devastating flops. People are no robots. There are always uncertainties, but they are the reason why this is so interesting.

    So my other source prediced this prior to the respective opening weekends:
    * 34M opening and 70M cume for Jonas Brothers. Everybody expected them to rule the weekend (like Miley Cyrus did with her concert movie last year) and I have still no idea why they failed to do so.
    * 31M opening and 60M cume for Madea Goes to Jail. Just on the same level as the other entries in the series (Family Reunion had a 30M opening). We all know it did better than expected. Seemingly Tyler Perry succeeded to build a loyal fanbase with his movies and he's just huge at the moment.

    If you know any source with better predictions please let me know. Or post your own in the future. I would be interested.
  • K-Man
    Face it, there hasn't been a more hyped movie that bombed since "Speed Racer."
  • Elaborate on how the movies a bomb.
  • bomb? ludicrous
  • lalalalalala
    how is 57 mil. for opening weekend a bomb?
  • Pistol Pete
    The first Hulk made more than that opening weekend, both a colossal fail.
  • Elaborate on how the movies a "bomb"?
  • Goobity
    Be fair. Watchmen is far more faithful to it's source material than Passion of the Christ. :)
  • Dan
    Am I the only one here with the total lack of interest in box office earnings/estimated box office earnings? Because it seems like such a hit topic here, every weekend, multiple posts about what's projected. And it's always discussed like some kind of points system. Who really, truly gives a fuck what non-sequel made the most millions in an opening weekend? Spider-Man ranks number one, and yet it's still a worse movie than most of the movies that made less... so what difference does it make? It's Spider-Man, of course it made a fuck of a lot of money, everybody knows what Spider-Man is, it was a big deal at the time. What does this prove? What does Watchmen's opening weekend earnings prove? Does it go to Championship at the end of the year? What a useless topic to discuss.
  • For a two-hour fourty minute R/18 rated film, anything above $50m is a bonus, and if it gets above £2m in Britain I will be ecstatic considering '18' rated films over here rarely pull in the financial bunny.
  • Wait, no shit, this is Watchmen. Yes ive read Watchmen, I love Watchmen, but go ask 90% of America if they know what watchmen is and you will get a blank stare. Watchmen might be the greatest comic of all time, but it still does not have the star power of Batman or Spiderman. Ive never even touched one of those comics (rest of the world is with me there), but i still know what those two superheroes are about through the extensive branding their respective companies have done for them over the years. Watchmen is not a brand and it obviously wouldn't make your previously expected weekend numbers. I mean half of the reviews ive read about the movie are from people who have never read the comic.

    As much as i cant wait to see this movie next week on Imax, The Reader might have more star power than Watchmen at this point.
  • MineNotYours
    Isn't that picture of the explosion kind of a spoiler? Maybe I'm wrong as I haven't seen it but from what I have heard on the /film cast, I would call it a spoiler.
  • Nope
    It's a dream sequence heavily used in the trailers. Not a spoiler.
  • I arrived an hour and half before the show and we still got crappy seats and it was completely full. I expect high numbers for a R-rating but I agree with the mass and see the numbers drop drastically the following week.
  • That is kind of less then what people were estimating, but pretty damn good for an R- rated movie where you had to think.
  • Man I hope it makes good money... I personally loved it and feels it deserves to at least come out positive.
  • Charles
    I'm shocked, My IMAX showing was sold out last night.
  • Joe
    #9 for gross on Friday, #9 for final tracking on Box Office Mojo.
  • cib3k
    It only made $55M over the weekend. One third of the budget.
  • DRF
    This movie will barely hit $100 mil if it hits it at all. The Paul Blart crowd doesn't want to be challenged by anything. Besides, the movie is an interesting failure at best. (Flashes of genius mixed with a tone-deaf pace of storytelling.) Which I wish we had more of rather than the outright dreck that is churned out by Ratner, Sommers and co. I'd take the interesting failures over any Fox "film"...Wolverine...Superman Returns....Spider-Man 3...etc....etc....etc.... I'll just go back to reading my book now.
  • Jack
    Take Planet of the Apes & I Am Legend OFF the list.

    There five, count em', FIVE Planet of the Apes films that came before the "Re-Boot" of the first film. And there were at least two other “I Am Legend” films based on Richard Matheson’s work. What is the difference between a “Re-Boot” that clearly belongs in the realm of the franchise and a “Sequel”?

    Nothing.
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