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Watchmen Babies is an idea whose time has come

Kim Hollis: Do you believe Watchmen's box office reflects primarily fanboy demand or do you believe a much wider audience drove most of its box office? Would Warner Bros. have gotten the same result without as much marketing?

Brandon Scott: No, Warner's would not have gotten the same box office without all the marketing, but I do think that this is largely fanboy demand that drove this weekend's figures. I'm a little surprised at this (seemingly) low figure, when I usually seem to fall on the opposite side of the argument in these discussions.

Max Braden: Its midnight take indicates huge response from the serious fans, but this was also released on a spring break weekend with no competition. With no marketing it may have gone ignored by general audiences, but with just a little awareness it was pretty much the must-see movie for everyone.

Daron Aldridge: I know of several people, myself included, that intentionally did not see it this weekend because of the expected masses and the ads and coverage fueled that speculation. The marketing was huge and a worthwhile investment as it put a non-mainstream source material in front of many people that wouldn't have had the foggiest clue about it otherwise.





Josh Spiegel: The marketing was definitely a big part in keeping awareness high, I'd say. The midnight response, as Max said, is an example of how much interest there is, but the overall take leads me to believe that fanboys drove this thing to such a high number. However, I'm not sure that the critical reaction will help this movie have big legs, massive marketing push or not.

Sean Collier: I'd say it's a fifty-fifty split. The fans certainly turned out, but it was obviously the clear choice in theaters this weekend. Without the marketing, I think we would've seen more of a dramatic under-performance.

Pete Kilmer: The fanboy and fangirl base certainly did come out this weekend. I was totally concerned about word-of-mouth, but that seems to be generally positive so I expect this to have some legs for the next couple of weeks.

David Mumpower: There seem to be four main levels of opening weekend for comic book properties. There are the fanboy films that even the fanboys don't want (see: Elektra) that open low and are never a box office factor. There are the fanboy films that primarily appeal only to young males. Their box office is generally in the mid-$30s to mid-$40s range. Then, we have the titles that have a bit more appeal outside of the fanboy demographic but not a huge amount. The first X-Men, both of the Fantastic Four films and both of the Hulk films fall in this grouping and they have box office in the mid-$50s range. Finally, we have the comic book properties that are ubiquitous and excite almost all movie-goers. These are the Spider-Mans, the Batmans and (lately) X-Men. They open north of $70 million and sometimes break $100 million. It's pretty clear that Watchmen falls in that third category where it did garner enough attention outside the core audience to qualify as one of the bigger (but not biggest) comic book openings.

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