Fourth Row Center

I found this article interesting. The Dark Knight finished its official run last on March 5th, the day before the Watchmen opened. It ran for 231 days and made $131, 364 in the final week on 54 screens. Officially, this put the movie in the top 50 money makers last week according to Box Office Mojo . It amazes me that a movie released last July had those legs. I watched it once in the theater, and maybe twice on DVD (and the second time because my wife agreed to watch it). Did the film cross boundaries with people that most "comic book" movies don't? Like the Watchmen, I thought the film was over long, and started to dry up when Heath Ledger wasn't on the screen. Something about Christian Bale's growling Batman voice bugged me. But kudos to the franchise for launching the most attended movie since The Phantom Menace.

I read the Watchmen back in 1989. At the time, I was going through a string of up and down relationships. To clear my head, I invited my bud, David, with me to go spend the weekend at Edisto Island. It was great. We hung out, drank some beer and he loaned me his copy of the Watchmen. It did not grab me like it did others. In fact, I would have gone as far as to say I did not like it. Fast forward, last week, I bought the comic (sorry, graphic novel) and have been making my way through it. I think there was too much heartbreak, sand (and maybe beer) that I missed a lot of the story. I don't think I even read excerpts at the end of each issue. It is in those narratives that flesh out the world of the Watchmen. What I missed the first time was that Alan Moore created another world that was really fleshed out. How could they ever make this into a movie? All of that back story just so that you understand how this movie hit me. It was like the reading back in 1989: it was good, but n...