Watchmen (film)

***Watchmen*** is a 2021 American superhero film based on the DC Comics limited series of the same name. Produced by DC Entertainment and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, it is the 31st film in the DC Cinematic Universe (DCCU). Directed by Chloé Zhao, who wrote the screenplay with Damon Lindelof, it stars Adam Driver, Ryan Gosling, Dakota Johnson, Michael Fassbender, Alexander Skarsgård, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Karl Urban, and Bryan Cranston. Set in an alternate history at the height of the Cold War, a retired group of superheroes investigate the murder of one of their own, while uncovering a horrifying conspiracy that will test their moral limits in the process.

Several attempts at adapting *Watchmen* became stranded in development hell, until 2017, when Warner Bros. put the film into active development. Damon Lindelof was hired to write the film later that year, while Zhao was set to direct in June 2018. Zhao was given significant creative freedom over the project and eventually rewrote the screenplay. Principal photography took place from April to September 2019, at Pinewood Atlanta Studios, as well as on location in Los Angeles.

*Watchmen* was released in the United States on March 19, 2021, as part of Phase Four of the DCCU. It grossed over $400 million worldwide. The film was praised by critics for its direction, writing, action sequences, musical score, technical aspects, and performances (particularly those of Driver and Johnson) and received numerous accolades. It was declared to by some to be better than the original comic.

## Cast

* Adam Driver as Walter Kovacs/Rorschach
* Ryan Gosling as Daniel Dreiberg/Nite Owl II
* Dakota Johnson as Laurie Jupiter/Silk Spectre II
* Michael Fassbender as Jon Osterman/Doctor Manhattan
* Alexander Skarsgård as Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias
* Jennifer Jason Leigh as Sally Jupiter/Silk Spectre
* Karl Urban as Edward Blake/The Comedian
* Bryan Cranston as Hollis Mason/Nite Owl

## Reception

### **Box office**

Dune grossed $108.3 million in the United States and Canada, and $293.5 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $401.8 million. *Deadline Hollywood* reported that a total box office gross of $300 million, the combined cost of production and marketing, "will make many happy from an image-standpoint, even if breakeven is far north of that."

In the U.S. and Canada, the film made $41 million in its opening weekend, surpassing its projected opening weekend estimates of $20–25 million and marking the highest opening weekend during the pandemic era. Of that opening weekend take, $17.5 million came from its first day ticket sales, including $5.1 million from Thursday night previews. *Watchmen* also had the best opening of Zhao's career. The film fell 62% in its second weekend to $15.5 million, though it easily remained atop the domestic box office. In its third weekend it dropped by 51% to earn $7.6 million, and was displaced by *Godzilla vs. Kong* from the top rank. On April 22, 2021, *Watchmen* became the first film of the pandemic era to cross $100 million in the US and Canada.

### **Critical reception**

Several critics have called *Watchmen* one of the greatest superhero films ever made. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 97% of 437 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.60/10. The website's "critics consensus" reads: "With exhilarating action and a surprising amount of emotional heft, *Watchmen* brings Alan Moore's legendary comic to life, and perhaps even surpasses it." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 90 out of 100, based on 51 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.