Weekend Box Office Estimates 3/6 - 3/8

1 Watchmen WB $55,655,000
2 Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail LGF $8,800,000
3 Taken Fox $7,450,000
4 Slumdog Millionaire FoxS $6,925,000
5 Paul Blart: Mall Cop Sony $4,200,000
6 He's Just Not That Into You WB (NL) $4,020,000
7 Coraline Focus $3,313,000
8 Confessions of a Shopaholic BV $3,121,000
9 Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience BV $2,785,000
10 Fired Up SGem $2,600,000

Who watches The Watchmen? Enough people to garner up a very healthy $55.6 million at the box office, that's who.

Although my expectations were for a much higher weekend total, one thing I forgot to take into consideration was the film's lengthy run time. Coming in at a whopping 2hrs 43min, it is no surprise that the movie made what it did opening weekend. Most theaters were only able to squeeze in three showings a day per screen, where your average ninety minute feature can manage almost double that.

Despite the length, Watchmen still sold out to theaters across the country, and even made $5.5 million at IMAX's over the weekend. This puts it second only to The Dark Knight, which garnered $6.8 million in the same venues. This and the fact that it was rated R (although we did have children in the theater when we saw it) had an impact on ticket sales. More important is the fact that it was as long as it was and that it was rated R, meant one thing: They got it right.

I've been doing a lot of homework to see if there is going to be any kind of director's cut. Not only is there going to be a director's cut, but an Ultimate Watchmen cut is also being planned. What does this mean?

Theatrical cut: 2hrs 43min, to be released on Blu-ray and DVD July 2009

Director's cut: 3hrs 10min, to be released on Blu-ray and DVD July 2009

Ultimate Watchmen: 3hrs 25min, (it could actually be longer) to be released on Blu-ray and DVD Fall 2009.

The 'Ultimate Cut' is special in that it will include the Black Freighter animated film, to be weaved back into the film and paced the same way as it was in the original the graphic novel. As quoted from Snyder himself, this cut will feature just about EVERYTHING he has for the movie. The downside is that a Fall release means that the release date could be as late as Dec 20th! Considering the fact that FOX is screwing them royally, it is understandable why they would pull a Lucas by releasing different versions of the film over a period of time in order to scartch up some more DVD sales. I'm letting you slide Warner, just this once.