haven't seen Watchmen yet

[johncomic]

... but saw a news item about it that made me think:

They were talking about its performance at the box office, and someone pointed out that, because it's so long, most theatres can only run it once a night instead of a more usual two or even three. Therefore that limits the number of tickets you can sell in a given time, e.g., on opening weekend.

Obvious after it's spelled out for me, but I admit I never thought about that before. Now I see why studios are always fretting so much about movies running too long. Could Watchmen have doubled its gross this weekend if it was shorter?

Comments

[brandifer.livejournal.com]

I suspect you're right, though it definitely would not have been the same experience had it been produced to the 'standard' length. I haven't read the book, but even I could tell that it needed the time to develop all the threads which wove the story.

I'm not sure I'm a big enough fan now to see it again, but I'm glad I saw it, and doubly glad I saw it in the theatre as opposed to dvd. It's an AMAZING visual experience. (Though I could have done with a little less of the Glowing Penis of Doom. {no real spoiler}.) :-)

[ginsu.livejournal.com]

You would get improved results that weekend, perhaps, but the real goal is improved results total. And that is more about customer satisfaction than length. Satisfy customers and you will make way more money overall, length be damned.

Titanic and Return of the King are conspicuous proof points for this argument.

[johncomic.livejournal.com]

Good point, but I wonder how confident the studios ever are that they have managed to produce another Titanic, or are they willing to settle for pumping up the opening weekend intake because the vast majority of the time that's most of the money you can hope for right there... it surprises me somewhat how often a movie will debut at #1 at the box office and then drop like a rock. It's like that's all they wanted from it.

[ginsu.livejournal.com]

the vast majority of the time that's most of the money you can hope for right there

Well, this is an interesting area. It is my opinion that if they knew what they were talking about -- if they could do the primary job they are supposed to do, which is figure out what audiences want and give them that -- they would know when they have produced a Titanic. They would have a far more consistent, objective means of evaluating creative works and deciding how well they align with audience interest.

They don't.

I also think it is this general failure that is responsible for stagnation in other creative fields -- for instance, newspaper comics. Given a new Dilbert or Calvin and Hobbes, the syndicates will almost without exception decide it is useless to them, and give it a pass.

I know this because that's what all of them did, but one, to the original Dilbert and the original Calvin and Hobbes. They simply have no tools to gauge this stuff, and if asked, would probably deny such things could ever exist.