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Ben Farrow: 300 is a classic tale that appealed to more than comic geeks. I knew the story of the hot gates from classical literature, the teriffic gates of fire, and about a dozen other tellings of the tale. I had no idea who Frank Miller was nor did I make the visual connection between the 300 and Sin City. I wanted to see 300 for the tale, which I knew, and then the trailer with some of the eyepopping vusuals sealed the deal. The fact that the story was well-told made me enjoy it.

I've never heard of Watchmen. I've seen the smiley face with blood, but have no context for it - this does nowhere near 300 numbers.

Walid Habboub: Sean, I would slightly disagree with your comparative assesment due to my opinion that there's a distinct discrepancy between a superhero film and a comic book film. 300 and Sin City are distinctly not superhero movies though they are based on comic books while Watchmen is clearly, and will come across in the advertising, as a comic book movie.

This makes me less enthusiastic about Watchmen's box office potential because superhero movies require brand recognition. Though it's not the only factor in its success (Catwoman and Punisher are two examples), I do think it is a must. Watchmen does not have that. I appreciate that you know many people that know about the graphic novel, but my personal observation is that it is a non-entity with much of the target audience.

Having said that, I no longer know what defines success at the box office anymore. I do not think this movie can open to $80 million, though I can't help but think that the "From the director of 300" and the visual oomph we've seen would have it open north of $60 million.

Craig Hemenway: In my circle of friends, I know exactly one person who's ever heard of or read Watchmen and that's because I gave her my copy to read. She loved it and is excited for the movie but only because of reading the story. (As an aside, is this really a graphic novel or is it a miniseries? Technical point, I guess.) I have to agree with Walid on this one. And has there been a big marketing push, aside from the pre-Dark Knight trailer? Clearly there's still time for this to pick up but I haven't seen much to date.

The single biggest thing I see working for this movie is that it's the first film of 2009 that has even a shot of being an event movie. If Sean is right and this ignites moviegoers who have no familiarity with the source material, it can run for a month before there's any competition for the core demographic.

And finally, current rumor has the movie clocking in at roughly two hours and 45 minutes. That makes me hopeful that the majority of the main sequence will be told pretty faithfully.

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