You Better Be Watching The Watchmen

The Hollywood Reporter um… reports …that Zach Snyder's fanboy-wank-a-thon "Watchmen" has broken a record even before it hits the streets: it's being released in more theaters than any other R-rated film has ever opened in before.

What does this mean for you, the lonely geek wondering if it will live up to your wild, ill-placed expectations? Just that you'll have less excuses for missing it. It's in THREE THOUSAND, SIX HUNDRED AND ELEVEN THEATERS. That's almost as many aneurysms Alan Moore has had since this thing's gotten off the ground.

It also means that if it fails, it will fail BIG, because, y'know, you have less excuses for missing it, as does the rest of America. The marketing push behind this thing has been MASSIVE, a huge, huge, millions-and-millions-of-dollars-huge vote of confidence from the studio that it believes in it and wants it to succeed, but at this point it has to make some serious bank just to break even.

All signs point to this being a love-it-or-hate it proposition, and that can spell trouble for a huge-budget production. The studios need everyone to love it, and love it enough to see multiple times.

Other interesting tidbits from the article: it'll have 1,600 midnight showings Thursday night, it's in 124 Imax theaters, and "Imax's Web site crashed four times this week because of traffic surges by "Watchmen" fans looking for ticket information". Which is, y'know, impressive.

I forsee a huge opening weekend, maybe even holding on for dear life in its second weekend, but overall this is most likely going to turn into a noble effort on behalf of Warner Bros. The DVD will most likely sell well, because all the geeks out there will want to get all 'easter eggy' on its ass.