The A.V. Club has a post up about how a lot of the screenings of Watchmen experienced mass walk outs. I saw it at Midnight on Thursday, and not one person left, so I can't really speak from experience. Plus, the only movie I can remember people walking out of was History of Violence, and that was because this group of 10 old ladies came to it thinking it was about Viggo Mortensen's marriage, not his ability to break coffee pots on people's faces.

Attention Watchmen haters: Looking for anecdotal evidence to support your claim that Watchmen sucks? Look no further: A few news outlets are reporting significant audience walk-outs during the dense—and long—superhero flick. Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune has a report today on his blog from a colleague that his screening endured a 25 percent audience-attrition rate. He also cites a post from Popten.net that mentioned "mass walkouts" at four points of the film, basically 15-minute intervals. Phillips says hollywood-elsewhere.com posted that one-third of an audience walked out of a screening as well.

Why is  "good", Mike?

You haven't even seen it?

The movie is faithful to the book.

I really enjoyed it.

It deserves all the -positive- attention.

The graphic novel is well heard of and the greatest gn ever created.

It's not an action packed book, nor is it an action packed movie.

I'm a huge fan of character development which this movie has tons of.

First off... I loved the movie, but this is coming from a man who has the Watchmen logo tattooed on his arm.

I never thought this book (or in this case the movie) would appeal to a mass audience.  I think the marketing blitz attracted a lot of people who had no idea what the Watchmen was and were expecting a X-men/Fantastic Four type superteam.  Not to even mention all the parents who stupidly took their 10 year-old children to a rated R movie. I still think you have to be a veteran to comic books and the superhero genre to fully appreciate Watchmen.

The book is considered the greatest graphic novel ever for many reasons, not just for being a character driven drama but because it also is a deconstruction on the superhero.  Each character is a study of what could happen if someone decided to be a "superhero" in our real world. And shows how the world would react to that, among many other things. Plus at the time that it was published it did things within the genre that were unheard of.  Author Alan Moore once said that after he finished writing Watchmen he knew he was (metaphorically) done writing superheroes. Everything that could be done with superheroes was done in this book, and no one will ever do it better.

The movie is about a 95% direct adaptation of that, and in that pretty much limits it appeal. 

Ok... #1 I know I rambled on. #2 I'm a self-confessed comic book geek. #3 I have a degree in creative writing so I could ramble on about this stuff for hours...   

I read what you said and I agree 100%.

I can't wait to see it again tomorrow.

http://www.toplessrobot.com/2009/03/this_is_why_no_one_wants_to_fight_dr_manhattan.php

hahahaha

okay that link was ridiculous banger.

and are they using the music from the NES game Kung-Fu??

haha

i'm not sure.

i thought it was from street fighter.

i didn't think it was funny until he did the tuck.