In front of The Dark Knight is a trailer for Watchmen, the highly anticipated adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons seminal and groundbreaking comic book series, and a property thought to be unfilmable. I have always had my doubts about being able to do the story justice, but now they will give it a try. The director chosen, Zack Snyder, has shown he can make a hit film based on a downbeat and unfilmable comic book property with 300. I just wonder if anyone other than comic book fans will want to see this film. You can say non-comic book readers are flocking to The Dark Knight, but Batman is a cultural icon that has been around for almost sixty years. He is a known character outside of fandom. Does anyone who is not a comic book reader ever heard of Dr. Manhattan, Nite Owl or Rorschach? Hopefully a good promotional campaign can overcome this deficit because I would truly love for this to be a big hit, showing that superheroes can be a viable and serious way to explore complex moral issues, making The Dark Knight the start of something big instead of a fluke.
The Dark Knight has passed the 300 million mark in domestic ticket says in ten days, making a new record for quickest grossing film. Predictions say it could make 400 million in 18 days and could even possibly surpass the 600 million record set by Titanic ten years earlier. That would be awesome! The highest grossing movie of all time could be a Batman movie. I’m doing my part, having just back from seeing it again, heck even The Patient One has seen it several times and she doesn’t even really like superhero movies. That’s how good a movie it is. Here’s hoping it makes it.
I have never been a big fan of The X-Files. I watched the first couple of seasons, but dropped out when they never explained how Mulder got out of the fire bombed rail car from the cliffhanger ending of season two. I would periodically pop back in through it’s run to see what was happening but would just shake my head and turn it off after a few minutes, the shape shifting aliens just didn’t work for me. So I’m more than a little surprised to find myself reading Roger Ebert’s review of the new film The X-Files: I Want To Believe and as he is describing the plot and the complex moral issues involved, I’m thinking that sounds pretty good, I might like to see that. At which point I stop and say to myself, “What are you thinking, you hate The X-Files!” Despite his health problems and giving up his beloved show, when Ebert is on his game, he can make you want to see a movie you normally wouldn’t be caught dead in. He’s just that good.