Tomorrow, I will have seen this film and will have an opinion about the work, not just the business. And that will be whatever it is.
In the meanwhile, please understand, I want Watchmen to be great. I love the graphic novel like so many others... not as rabidly as some. And I don't mind a bit of the old ultraviolence if it works in the film. I have no problem with any movie violence unless I get that sense that the filmmaker is just using it to score some sick ego points (see: Hostel 2, Downloading Nancy, etc.) My wife still gets angry at me for defending Donkey Punch as a worthwhile effort because it is not really about the ugliness of the title, but is really a thriller using that as a way into the story.
This is Show and this is Business.
There are two different things going on and they are going on all the time, often coming out of the same mouth at the same time.
Niche is now. Niche is the future of film. Niche, for lack of a better word, works. So I don't understand - I kinda do - why the notion of being niche so enrages The Boys. Unlike so many others, at least their niche is being served and served endlessly. "They" have a Watchmen and not just 27 Dresses or Madea Tucks Her Junk hitting theaters.
Niche is where the money is. Taken is niche. Paul Blart is niche. Every hit so far this year is niche. It's not a dirty word... at least not in this blog space.
When a furor like the one in here on this issue happens, I am almost always surprised at first, and then it makes sense after a minute or two. There is no room for gray with a lot of people in the group that is this niche.
Thing is, Slumdog Millionaire was niche... I wrote about it being niche... I wrote about how carefully Searchlight was rolling it out. Same with Frost/Nixon. Same with Milk. Etc, etc, etc...
But Watchmen is chasing EVERYONE as best they can. And WB is chasing 4 quadrants not because they LOVE the film (though they may), but because they spent so much on the film and because, in small part, because they now have another partner siphoning cash off the top.
I loved Matrix Reloaded and the same thing was true (minus the siphon). This is not about how I may or may not feel about a film.
It has been clear since I wrote about it and got slammed by some of you weeks ago, that there are some demographics that would have issues with going to the film if they knew the actual content. That doesn't mean it shouldn't have been made. But WB has been very, very careful and very, very smart about, 100%, HIDING that content. If the next two days of media are about the violence and sex in the film, they have a $50 million opening and not a $70 million opening and the movie's likelihood of making money for WB becomes much less. And that, whether some like it or not, is the reason they made Watchmen, same as they made Sisterhood of The Traveling Pants 2, same as they made The Lake House, same as they made Good Night, And Good Luck.
Watchmen, to WB, is a piece of business. And for the individuals at the studio, it is a piece of business that could save or cost real-life jobs.
For Zack Snyder and everyone else who hands-on made the film, it is his artistic effort. Great. Good or bad, good for him and good for them and as I always point out, if it isn't great, it is not for lack of effort.
Do I think that it is informative that only 1 million copies of the book/comic series have been purchased to date? Yes.
Do I think it is informative to realize that a Broadway hit, playing 8 times a week for 5 years, converted to a movie has (in almost all cases) had fewer than 2 million people who have seen the material before... and that if every person who saw the play went to the movie, that's under $20 million in box office? Yes.
The danger for studios right now is making niche movies, which may do a lot of money at the box office compared to what is expected, for the kind of money you might spend on a four quadrant film or one that hits a stronger commercial niche.
On an arthouse level, Vantage could not have done better with some of their great films in the last few years... and every one of them lost money.
On a big studio level, the $100 million-plus comedy (that doesn't really play overseas) has become the thing that is too far to go.
Studios killed off straight drama years ago for this reason... it's a niche and it's a niche well served on television, so a gross over $50 million is very rare and talent that wants to make these films is often of the $20 million variety. Make the movie for $25m total or less and you have a legit shot at a movie that is a profit center. Make the movie for $70 million and you have a headache.
But no matter how much I write about "non-geek" product in the same way I write about these big "geek" films, the former seems to be forgotten by some and the latter is the basis for the end of the world as we know it.
I do keep writing the fight because I believe in the Gospel of Reality in The Movie Business. And I believe that most readers really want to understand. And I am thrilled when serious discussions of these issues - even when I disagree with the positions many take - happen in here.
Meanwhile, I am still The Bad Guy because WB f'ed up and had to pay Fox, which is all Fox ever really asked for. The hype about Evil Fox and their alleged interest in shelving Watchmen - always utter bullshit - overlooked the simple reality that they were right and WB was wrong and it wasn't a morality play.... it was and is a bit of business.
If some people need to fight to keep their fantasies alive and to believe in The Evil of Fox and the goodness of whoever is making the movie they want to see right now and to believe that Watchmen was as widely read as The Da Vinci Code or Twilight (another absolute niche title), so be it.
But remember... if Da Vinci's massive worldwide gross leaves Watchmen in the rear view, none of us really think that it means Da Vinci is a better movie, do we? Is there one of you who will argue that Pirates 2 is better than The Dark Knight because it did more worldwide? Does anyone who dislikes Slumdog like it because it's making so much money now? And does anyone who loves Frost/Nixon hate it now because it did poorly at the box office?
I am interested in all of these layers because I live in all of these layers. I have real experience in knowing what the studios are thinking, and what the filmmakers are thinking, and what critics are thinking, and what consumers are thinking. At this point, the "real world" is probably what I know least. And that is, indeed, a price of doing this work for so long. But while these mindsets sometimes merge, it is very, very rare for more than a couple of them to be in line on any film.
And even then, it is tricky and personal. Yes, studios make movies because they believe they will work commerically... but sometimes, they make films because of relationships... and sometimes they really do care about a film and lose perspective on the dollars and sense.
And I try to figure out how that is working.
Sometimes I am dead on. Sometimes I miss by a country mile. I can only promise that the effort is sincere and that I try to do my best. If that doesn't soothe your savage ***... well, that's someone else's job.
Read the complete post at http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/archives/2009/03/show_business_a.html