Spout has summarized the last couple days of this chatter better than I have, but one observation missing is that Watchmen's $55 mill opening says something about the future of the theatrical movie business.
A great deal of the people who went and made the opening that big were die-hard fans, whether on standard or more-expensive IMAX admissions. The rest came from people the marketing worked on who went in oblivious to what it was they were about to see. People still do and will continue to want the theatrical experience.
People have given Warners props for funding and producing a big, violent, expensive R-rated comic book movie. The only ballsier thing they could have done was release it day-and-date to VOD. One of these days, a major studio will try it, and it'll work.
Purely speculatively, I think we would not have seen a first weekend drop even had it gone day-and-date to VOD. Had VOD been in play, I am confident the overall total would have been much higher thanks to one demographic specifically: parents of young children.
I am, of course, talking about only the parents of toddlers who can't get babysitters or who don't take their two year old to Hostel II. I walked into the office yesterday morning and started polling coworkers as I often do after a major opening. Those who were unburdened by little kids went and saw it, had mixed feelings, "didn't get it," or said it didn't make them feel good like Iron Man or X-Men did.
The refrain was the same as it's been weekend after weekend with the moms and dads, "I'll catch it on DVD. Was it good? I really wanted to see it." VOD day-and-date may work a lot better than people think in specific implementation. Why think of it as every single title when you could do just R movies opening week? Do arthouse movies a couple weeks out from opening since they're limited in terms of markets. Keep those multiple admission-generating families packing the houses for Shrek and the 7 Orcs.
Hollywood hedges its bets and doesn't take risks. It just isn't the business model out there, but I want to say someone will try this eventually. By no means am I recommending VOD as the new black when it comes to exhibition. Those who are dismissing it are viewing it as some sort of big bad thing to avoid, but it really could be a greater ancillary profit line than hindrance to first weekend receipts.