Watchmen was a terrible movie? I quite liked it, but then again I might have just been in awe seeing it at Imax for the first time, seeing the comic come to life.
Now, some people may have been put off reading the comic by the movie, but those people never would have read it anyway. If you look at the sales during the time, Watchmen shot up the charts to be Amazon's number 1 selling book, I even saw people reading it on the train. There were people who never read comics before picking it up and reading it as well. I have no doubt in my mind that the movie did far more good for the comic than harm.
I think it's probably the same with Kick-ass, I know that my friend saw a big display of all the Kick-ass books at a major bookstore the other day, I can just about guarantee that never would have happened if it weren't for the movie.
As for the amount of comics, it's 66 issues of the main story plust 9 One-Shots and a mini-Series. As you said you could probably cut out most of those for a movie, since they mostly give background but aren't really essential.
Have you read the full series though, or just those first 5 issues. As for people not wanting to read the 9 volumes, I disagree. The series has quite a big following it seems, and other series like 100 Bullets and Transmetropolitan ran for even longer.
Well anyway, as for a movie, I wouldn't mind too much if it didn't follow the comics to the letter, but so long as they capture that feel and style of it. I want to see the movie and get that feeling of a modern day western mixed with all that American legend and myth.