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Joshua Pasch: I can't help but think that this number is a real letdown for Fox. It may not end up being a huge loss, but in making a sequel to a classic, they were certainly aiming for both higher quality and higher grosses. Money Never Sleeps will not be remembered as the Color of Money to its Hustler, Wall Street. For Fox, greed is good, but not great.

Reagen Sulewski: I would tend to call this found money. For a sequel that looks exactly like what I might have done had I been tasked with the job of creating the parody of a Wall Street film, to grab a respectable double digits opening and first place on a weekend is an achievement. As bad as the idea seemed, it's incredibly The Monkeyl, and I think people just remembered "Oh yeah, I used to like Michael Douglas. Why don't I see him in stuff anymore?" I would also not underestimate the impact of "Sheelaboof", who has shown a surprising resilience in non-Terminator films despite the repeated punches to the face he must take on a daily basis.

Penguins > Owls? Yes, when they're dancing.

Kim Hollis: Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole opened to $16.1 million. The shiny Zack Snyder film had a budget of $100 million. After Friday, you wouldn't have thought it would make that much, but how do you think it will manage overall against that budget?

Josh Spiegel: In the end (meaning after it opens everywhere in the world and once DVD and Blu-ray sales are factored in), the movie will make more than the $100 million budget. That said, this is kind of disappointing especially because there aren't that many kids' movies in the multiplexes right now and Guardians could have taken advantage of that. I guess kids are as interested in fighting owls as I am.





Bruce Hall: I was curious as to what kind of performance we'd see out of this film, because it is actually well suited to 3D. My biggest problem with the technology is now that we've reached the point where it doesn't have to be an Eisenhower-era gimmick, it is still all too often used that way. But with this film, I have to admit that the tech was used effectively, and Animal Logic achieved a far more natural result than you see in the majority of 3D films. Instead of the effect appearing tacked on, you get the sense that you are experiencing something close to the realistic field of depth that we see in day to day life. I didn't just come away needing some Advil, I felt as though I'd seen something that I hadn't been expecting. It didn't make the story any better, but I suppose this movie wasn't exactly meant for my demographic. I was urged to see this movie for the sake of the effects, which is something that usually keeps me AWAY from a film.

I am still permanently scarred from sitting through Spielberg's War of the Worlds. "Go see it for the effects," I was told. It had an "effect," all right.

But I digress. In the end, it looks as though Legend of the Guardians was not helped much by any of this. I am not sure what it says for 3D overall; I get the feeling that the industry is more excited about it than we are, but they're going to push it down out throats until we all have 3D TV sets and we're all happy to stand in line and give up half a mortgage payment to take the family out to the movies.

As far as it making budget that's harder to say. I am not sure the story is strong enough to give it great word-of-mouth, and the 3D effects will mean less once the movie is released on DVD/Blu-Ray since it won't be an option. I've never heard of the books, but maybe it is because I don't have any kids, or maybe it is because the books aren't as popular as they think they are. Perhaps you consider this one a moral victory, like the DeLorean or Betamax - the kind that proves something is possible even if it doesn't exactly take the world by storm.

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