The event film of the year (so far) arrives in multiplexes this weekend, Zack Snyder’s Watchmen, based on the classic graphic novel by Alan Moore. Of course, Moore has disavowed the movie and has taken his name out of the credits, but he can be kind of persnickety. All eyes are on the Watchmen this weekend as popular consensus has always said that the novel is impossible to translate to the screen. I don’t quite buy that. I don’t believe that anything is impossible to bring to the screen; all you need is a talented, visionary director and the balls to make the film. Just like the tag line for the film, the question this weekend is who watches the Watchmen? 

There is no doubt that Watchmen will open at #1 by a clear mile, but how much is it going to make? The graphic novel has a solid fan base and it will certainly be out in force this weekend. But is anyone else going to see it? Watchmen should bring in sci-fi and action movie fans who haven’t read the novel… that is a no brainer. There hasn’t been a big budget spectacle like this since last Novembers The Day the Earth Stood Still, which kind of sucked, so the excitement level for Watchmen is high from even those who haven’t read it. The audience will be made up of all boys however, as I doubt there are too many women out there willing to sit through a 3 hour comic book film with no recognizable characters. Call it the anti Sex and the City. Then there is the films R rating. This will shut out a large segment of the comic book movie audience and guarantee no shot at a Dark Knight or Spiderman type opening. It is important to remember that Snyder’s last film, 300, also based on a graphic novel and also rated R, opened to a spectacular $70M 2 years ago. The question is whether Watchmen will surpass that or just fall short of the mark. 

The reviews for Watchmen have been all over the map, with some critics declaring it a masterpiece and others calling it garbage and there doesn’t seem to be an in between. It has been a long time that a movie has been this polarizing. The fact that the reviews are all over the place only helps its box office potential in my opinion. Audiences will want to see it just so they can be part of the debate. Taking all of this into account, my guess is that Watchmen will gross about $65M this weekend.

This brings us to holdovers from prior weeks. Not one film other than Watchmen will gross over $9M. In fact Watchmen will make more money than the other 9 films in the top 10 combined. Probably nearly double the gross of the other movies. Let’s take a look. Slumdog Millionaire will have its first decline in weeks as the heat from awards season cools down. It will however, achieve its highest placement on the charts so far. Look for Slumdog to land in the number 2 spot with a decline of 30% and a gross of $8.8M for the weekend. Jonas Brothers: The 3-D Concert Experience opened to a disappointing $12.7M last weekend and I have to assume that most of their fans saw the concert at this point. You can’t count out repeat business and some less diehard fans coming out to see it this weekend though. Jonas Brothers will drop 65% to gross $4.4M this weekend. After being the box office champ 2 weekends in a row, look for Madea Goes to Jail to land in third place with $8.7M, down 45% from last week. To see the rest of my predictions, check out the chart below.