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Animal pelts are so in. Screw you, PETA.

Kim Hollis: What are your thoughts and expectations for the box office performance of Year One?

Josh Spiegel: I love Judd Apatow, I love most of his movies, I like Jack Black and Michael Cera, and having Harold Ramis direct another comedy really excites me. With all that said, I think Year One might be the first major flop of the summer. Based simply off the trailers and posters, this movie just doesn't look funny. Black has never been the biggest movie star, so he may not draw in the big crowds; Cera seems to be playing George Michael Bluth here, again, which isn't a great thing. The concept is smart, there are plenty of funny people in the movie, but there's just something about this whole thing, based solely on the marketing, that gives it an air of forgettability. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think we'll be talking about this film's stellar box office performance in two months' time.

Pete Kilmer: I agree with everything Josh says, love Apatow, love that Ramis is directing, love Jack Black. Not loving that Micheal Cera is basically playing the same character role again that he's played in Juno, Superbad and Arrested Development. I know a lot of people are already comparing this to the Mel Brooks classic History of the World. The problem is, it's a very different audience for these type of films than when Brooks was in his heyday.





Max Braden: The first trailer they played for this during the Super Bowl looked completely idiotic, like a super long SNL sketch and even worse than The Love Guru. This trailer is a vast improvement but still looks like a bunch of dumb jokes thrown against the wall to see what will stick. I think audiences will go and cross their fingers hoping for something good; with Cera's fans slightly outnumbering Black's. I don't expect it to gross more than $40 million, if that.

Jim Van Nest: Honestly, I don't know what to think of this one. While there are parts of the trailer that had me laughing, for each one of those there was a "poliest of polies" that reminded me of why I don't really care for Jack Black. When looking through his box office history, unless he's playing second (or third) fiddle to more popular folks or a gigantic ape or is animated, his record is pretty mediocre. Giving this one an Apatow bump, I still don't see it doing much more than about $60 million total. It would not surprise me if this is the bomb of the summer.

Reagen Sulewski: They definitely need to make sure the guy who put together the first commercial and make sure he never gets to touch editing equipment again. That said, while I thought the extended clip from the film that debuted at the same time was a borderline genius piece of comedy, I suspect I'm going to be in a small minority of people that feel the way about the film. On the other hand, if Nacho Libre can open to almost $30 million, why can't this?

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