[press release from Paramount]
Zack Snyder’s WATCHMEN had a spectacular #1 opening at the Australian box office, grossing $AUD3.58 million since Thursday. This was more than 3 times the gross of the next nearest film – the #2 film grossed just over $AUD1 million.
WATCHMEN also had the biggest opening of the year so far at the US box office, grossing $US55.7 million since March 6.
WATCHMEN has been described by one key Australian film critic as “the first great movie of 2009”.
Michael Selwyn, Managing Director Paramount Pictures Australia said of the film’s opening: “We are delighted at the response to WATCHMEN. The intelligent compelling story and contemporary relevance coupled with amazing visuals and stunning action sequences seems to be appealing across a very broad audience spectrum.”
A complex, multi-layered mystery adventure, WATCHMEN is set in an alternate 1985 America in which costumed superheroes are part of the fabric of everyday society, and the Doomsday Clock—which charts the USA’s tension with the Soviet Union—moves closer to midnight.
When one of his former colleagues is murdered, the outlawed but no less determined masked vigilante Rorschach sets out to uncover a plot to kill and discredit all past and present superheroes. As he reconnects with his former crime-fighting legion—a disbanded group of retired superheroes, only one of whom has true powers—Rorschach glimpses a wide-ranging and disturbing conspiracy with links to their shared past and catastrophic consequences for the future.
Their mission is to watch over humanity…but who is watching the Watchmen?