14 DAY TRIAL // “Watchmen” was one of the most hyped and anticipated movies of early 2009 and, from what movie critics say, also the first big disappointment. Speaking strictly in numbers, the film fared poorly at the box-office, but director Zach Snyder is not going to let that affect in any way his plans for the future as regards the film, as Collider has learned.
Speaking at ShoWest, where he accepted the 2009 Director of the Year Award, Snyder said that he simply could not believe the way critics trashed “Watchmen” solely on account of the fact of its performance at the box-office. People hated the film because it did not sell, he said, but they did not stop to consider that, in the end, this was an R-rated movie than ran for over 2 hours and a half – all of which worked against it in terms of narrowing down the audience for it.
“The thing about ‘Watchmen’ is it’s a lot of craziness. It’s a long movie, it’s rated R. Everyone is talking about ‘Monsters vs. Aliens,’ which is a cool movie, comes out and makes like $58 million and everyone is like, ‘Oh my god, it’s the hugest hit ever!’ And then a [sic] R-rated movie, two and a half hours long with superheroes […] makes $55 million dollars and every-one’s like ‘WHAT?’ How is that possible? I’m pretty happy with the movie.” Snyder told the media at the aforementioned event.
However, several movie-oriented e-zines are pointing out, while the director does make a valid point, he’s also leaving out certain details that might contradict him. For instance, they say, it was not the long run time or the rating that worked against the film, since it opened strongly in the US, literally smashing the competition. Then, in its second week of release, it dropped 68% in the box-office chart, which in itself should be an indication as to why the audiences hated it.
Nevertheless, Snyder says, poor ticket sales and mixed critical reception will not stand in the way of him seeing his plans for “Watchmen” through. “We’re super proud of the movie, the director’s cut is coming soon. So in July you’ll get to see more ‘Watchmen.’ If you didn’t have enough in two hours and forty minutes you’ll have three hours and ten minutes, and I think there is three hours and thirty minutes coming so they’ll be a lot more ‘Watchmen’ to come, regardless of how people feel about it.” the director added.
In the same interview, Snyder also revealed that chances for the director’s cut to make it to the big screen as well were big, although he refused to be more specific on that.