Watchmen
The new superhero flick Watchmen made $55.7 million this weekend, making it the biggest opening of 2009 as of right now. Despite the film being almost three hours long, the movie did fairly well at the box office. Since the movie was based on the graphic novel of the same name, the fans helped make it to number one. However, the numbers were actually below expectations. Many speculated that the film would gross more in its opening weekend than the director’s previous film 300, which made $70 million its opening weekend. I would assume this is due to the state of the nation’s economy. So granted, the movie didn’t make as much as expected, it still did pretty well. I feel as though Watchmen is just one of many epic stories that has been turned into movies. People have already experienced many superhero movies and it is because they are already fans of the heroes, the movies do so well. The same goes with a few upcoming movies. I myself watched Watchmen this weekend, but I want to talk about the trailers that preceded the film. I am always excited to for the previews before the movie, as they give me something to look forward to watch in the future. They showed Star Trek and Terminator Salvation before the movie. Although these two are not based on comic book superheroes, they have characters that many people are familiar with, which is why I believe they will both do incredibly well at the box office. And it was fitting that these two trailers played before Watchmen. As we learned from an article earlier in the quarter, commercials and trailers are showed with shows and movies that appeal to a similar audience. One of the reasons I think that these type of movies do well is that they have familiar characters. In a regular movie, in which you do not know much about prior to watching it, the goal of the filmmaker is to get you to care for the characters so that you care about the movie. With movies like The Dark Knight, Watchmen, Star Trek, and Terminator, you already care about the characters, so the goal has already been achieved. This is why I believe that any future hero adaptations or T.V. adaptations (perhaps one like Arrested Development) will continue to land in the number one spot at the box office.
