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Kim Hollis: That's correct, Josh. Disney/Pixar has always had a distinct release pattern for their overseas releases where they are never in all international markets at the same time they are released in the United States. It's just not realistic to compare Up and Ice Age at this point, given the difference in strategy.

Scott Lumley: For a studio that I love dearly, that staggered release doesn't make much sense to me. This is the age of piracy, every week Up is released in select countries but not in others, the more likely people are to get tired of waiting and download it off the net. Get it out there, let people appreciate it for what it is. Make money fast before people can steal it from you.

Josh Spiegel: Scott, I'm with you on the Disney love (though that's partially because I am completely ignoring Miley Cyrus, the Jonas Brothers, and all that silly stuff), but it's been a relatively shrewd business plan for the Mouse House to do staggered releases: Ratatouille was released in October of 2007 in the United Kingdom and made nearly $50 million, while WALL-E was released in Japan in December of 2008 and walked away with just about $45 million; since both films made over half their overall gross outside of this continent, it would stand to reason that Up could follow a similar pattern. I do agree that there are, and have been, many options for people to find these films instead of waiting. This just shows how Pixar makes scads of money on quality as opposed to quantity, I suppose.

Sean Collier: The Hangover smelled like a hit - not to the degree it proved to be, but I can't say I'm shocked. Transformers, however: a) sucked; b) everyone knew it sucked; c) is a sequel to a movie that sucked; d) was made for 11-year-olds, and e) sucked. This movie nearly disproves everything we know about word-of-mouth, and it came out of the gate like the freakin' Dark Knight. Stunning.

Jim Van Nest: While I didn't expect Up to be #2 to Finding Nemo, the consistent quality and love of Pixar's efforts did have me expecting good things. Transformers...to me, this one was review proof. For the people who wanted to see it, bad reviews only further cement the fact that it must be awesome. I'm not shocked about the Transformers take either. The Hangover? Are you frickin' kidding me? If you had told me the movie about a bunch of guys getting drunk in Vegas was going to cash in to over $200 million, I'd have told you that you were nuts. For the summer, The Hangover is easily the "How the hell did THAT happen" story.

Jason Lee: Despite the fact that we almost always seem to get one breakout comedy each summer, Hangover wins Surprise of Summer '09 for me (for all the reasons already mentioned). Few box-office prognosticators even predicted that it would win its opening weekend, much less become the highest grossing R-rated comedy of all time.

David Mumpower: To my mind, the order of impressiveness relative to expectations is The Hangover followed by Star Trek followed by Up (now the second biggest Pixar film ever) followed by Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. That's a current tally, though. If Transformers does wind up making $400 million, I move it up the list. That's a different threshold than $360 million or so would be, an amount that would be solidly better than its predecessor but not earth-shattering. So, that one is upwardly mobile on this list depending on what happens over the next month. Its drop this weekend is difficult to read due to the holiday impact. At this moment, The Hangover is the little film that could to an extraordinary degree. It's like There's Something about Mary after a decade of HGH injections.

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