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Pete Kilmer: Well, I'll take the tack that it is a successful not only for run time, but for the fact that outside of the comic book fans of the past 20 years, the general public may not have been familiar with The Watchmen name. Regardless of the fact that this highly regarded book has made best of lists for the last 20 years, there is still a majority of American movie goers that had never heard of it. And the fact that this was an R movie I think makes this movie a success.

Craig Hemenway: Tim is right. Run time is irrelevant. Screen count, on the other hand, matters. On 3,600 estimated screens, Watchmen took in over $15,000 per screen across the weekend. Solid but not fantastic and mostly reflective of a comic fan base. 8% of the weekend take came from midnight sneaks. That's a pretty impressive amount and, to me, is indicative of a very strong hardcore fan base. Overall this should be considered a win as it lacks the broader appeal of a 300 but look for weak legs and a sharp dropoff.

Daron Aldridge: Craig, it's duly noted that the massive screen count goes a long way to negate the run time shaving off an extra showing. Warner Bros. made it so that if you wanted to see Watchmen this weekend, you could. A few theaters near me had it starting every hour to hour and half.

My devil's advocate position was more from a place of not labeling run time as a nonfactor for films in general.

Reagen Sulewski: Think about this - they took a book known pretty much only in the hardcore nerd circles, with no familiar characters, no known stars and an opaque premise, and made it the third biggest opening film in March history - and we're debating as to whether they did as good a job as they could have in bringing the film to people? It's a triumph of marketing, from my standpoint.

David Mumpower: Here is another way to look at it. Watchmen had the best opening of the year by roughly $15 million. In addition to being the third biggest March opening ever, it is the fifth best opening for an R-rated film and second best IMAX performer with $5.5 million, trailing only The Dark Knight. This opening weekend beats long established comic book properties such as Superman Returns, Batman Begins, X-Men, Daredevil and Ghost Rider. It is more than the last two Blade films' combined openings. I understand why it's being viewed as a disappointment in some circles - it is $15 million less than I had predicted - but Reagen is right that they've gotten a *lot* of mileage out of a relatively unknown comic book property (outside that industry, anyway).

Kim Hollis: I feel the same way that David and Reagen do. It wasn't that long ago that we were all arguing Watchmen's potential and a number of us were coming in as detractors, saying that only a very small, devoted, fanboy audience would turn out. This is movie based on a comic book that is unknown to most people, with actors that are not well-recognized, set in the 1980s and featuring a big, weird blue guy. An outsider looking in would have to think it looks like a more depressing version of The Tick, especially with villains named The Comedian, Rorschach and Nite Owl. The fact that the movie did this much business is amazing when you take all that into consideration.

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