'Watchmen' is going largely unwatched

Everybody is talking about "Watchmen."

Now if only more people would watch it.

Amid a flurry of anticipation and hype, director Zack Snyder's superhero epic opened last weekend with $55.2 million in U.S. ticket sales -- a solid but less-than-blockbuster debut for a movie that Warner Bros. and its partners will have spent $200 million-plus to make and market.

The question now is whether all the Internet and water cooler chatter will translate into footsteps into the theaters this weekend.

"The film had a very respectable opening," said Christopher Dixon, managing director at Gabelli Group Capital Partners. "The killer, of course, is whether the picture is able to sustain its popularity."

Warner Bros. has a lot riding on "Watchmen." Like all its rivals, the Time Warner Inc. studio is under pressure to improve its bottom line amid shrinking DVD sales and a challenged economy. Warner Bros. spent millions of dollars fighting a lengthy legal battle with rival 20th Century Fox over the rights to "Watchmen." While Warner retained the right to release the movie as planned, the court recently ordered the studio to pay Fox up to 8.5% of the film's gross receipts and reimburse its $1.5 million of development costs.

For "Watchmen" to be a breakout hit, it will not only have to entice new and repeat business from fanboys but attract a more hesitant general audience, which may be hard to lure given the R-rated film's explicit violence and dark overtones. Comic book fanatics and critics have been divided. Some love it because it is faithful to the best-selling graphic novel of all time. Others think it's long and boring.

The good news for Warner Bros. is that the controversy has created buzz. "Because of its polarizing nature, my hope is that the debate carries people into the theater," said Jeff Robinov, Warner Bros. Pictures president.

Based on Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon's acclaimed comic book series, "Watchmen" is a murder mystery set in an alternate 1985 America governed by Richard Nixon and populated by retired costumed superheroes who band together to investigate a murder of one of their own.

The DC comic book property has been equated to "Moby Dick," "War and Peace," even called the "Holy Grail" of graphic novels.

Known as Hollywood's big-event movie and franchise-centric studio, Warner Bros. had high hopes for "Watchmen" when it took on the project three years ago after it had made the studio rounds for decades.