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Shalimar Sahota: I'm a little surprised at this. Although this was pretty much what I thought it would make for the weekend, once those reviews came in, I thought there would be a dip. It looks like this also has fans that will turn up to see it, regardless of how bad the reviews are, and Paramount should be happy with that. The reviews have put me off of watching it, but in a strange way, I do want to see just how bad it really is!

Kim Hollis: I think they should be absolutely thrilled with this result at this point, because going into the weekend it was looking like an awful lot bigger bomb than this. I fully expect this to fall apart next weekend, which will make it a terrible box office performer, but I have been very, very wrong about this movie so far. I just can't imagine people running out to see it based on what both critics and movie-goers are saying.

Brett Beach: Here is an interesting comment from Paramount that puzzles me just a little: they note that the Cinemascore rating for The Last Airbender was a C and then go on to add that both Cloverfield and Shutter Island (also from their studio) had that same score and went on to perform decently. Well, Cloverfield made some coin but, as we all know, stands as the textbook example of a film that was a one-weekend wonder. Shutter Island, however, held up quite decently in subsequent weeks, with drops around 45% (versus Cloverfield's second and third weekend drops of greater than 60%).

I bring this up to suggest a scenario in which The Last Airbender might hold up despite not only butchering reviews but also fairly horrible word-of-mouth. Can anyone think of other recent "word-of-mouth" proof hits?

To answer Kim's question: Paramount must be overjoyed with the numbers, but will probably wait a little while to announce if the trilogy will proceed. I do wonder if they will consider replacing Shyamalan in the hopes of better reviews next time out (studios say they never care, but deep down, they all would love the extra mileage a well-reviewed film can provide).

Tim Briody: The only thing I know about Avatar: The Last Airbender (which is what it was called before James Cameron ruined everything), is that the Xbox 360 game lets you get all 1,000 achievement points in five minutes. Anyway, I'm not surprised at all with the opening here as there was clearly a devoted fanbase to it. After The Happening (which did open to $30 million...and finished with $64 million), M. Night made a smart move, taking a known quantity rather than going with an original idea; which he was clearly out of after his first three hits. While it's apparent that it was botched badly, $57 million is nothing to sneeze at. It's going to fall off a cliff from here, but Paramount should be pretty happy.

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