Once upon a time there was a film.
It had a director mostly known for making franchise films bigger and louder but who was not particularly considered a great director/auteur.
It got a lot of buzz but was plagued by whispers of problems, whispers that were not helped by an early in the year, non-prestige release date.
The film I'm thinking of had a kick-butt trailer. But the trailer was also a teaser, and it came out so far in advance of the film that rather than building excitement culminating in a ticket purchase, it created anxiety (have I seen all teh good stuff already? will it be another trailer that looks good but be a bad film?) and backlash (I'm sick of this movie and I haven't even seen it yet!).
Early reviews were guarded, and the pressure of the fact that nothing less than a home run would live up to expectations made failure seem inevitable.
It was in a genre that conventional wisdom said appealed to a particular demographic rather than to a wide enough one to attract blockbuster numbers.
It starred actors who, while known, were not exactly box office best bets.
It was accused of being special effects laden, bloated, and over long.
That film was....
Titanic
I swear the lead up to The Watchmen feels nothing if not like the buzz creation cycle leading up to Titanic, and I just have a hunch people are going to go ape over the film in a big way...
No, I haven't seen the film and I've read the graphic novel once. I liked it, but I don't consider myself a geek about it. This is nothing but a hunch, but it just feels like deja vu all over again.
2 comments:
I just read the graphic novel for the first time. Can't really see how Hollywood can do anything but muck it up. Of course, I'm not as versed in the lore as others, so maybe I won't mind.
Oh, I 'm sure they will.
It's just that somehow or another I sense that it isn't really going to matter.
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