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Joshua Pasch: I have to say I never considered he would ever fall into a Direct to DVD type of film until someone threw it out there. And honestly, if Taken wasn't a hit, Unknown would feel a lot like it is D-to-D. That said, I hope it never happens.

Michael Lynderey: I think it depends on how you define "short-lived". I definitely think he has another one of these in him, but after that he may be headlining ensemble casts rather than solo acts - i.e. Liam Neeson and Gerard Butler as... "The Bounty Hunters". I don't buy this direct-to-DVD thing for a second. Neeson is way too respected and august to get into that, especially right now, and several years down the road, I doubt he'd bother. He'll always have work if he wants it, in theatrical films, that is.

It's better than being Number Two, I guess.

Kim Hollis: I Am Number Four, the modest superhero film from Disney, opened to $19.4 million. Do you consider this to be a satisfactory result?

Edwin Davies: For a film that is clearly intended as the start of a franchise it's probably a little on the low side. Even though the budget is reportedly only $50 million, a figure which it could very well reach domestically, and almost certainly once overseas figures are factored in, it isn't the sort of breakout success that DreamWorks and Disney must be hoping for if they want to turn it into the new Harry Potter/Twilight.





Josh Spiegel: Especially because Disney and DreamWorks were clearly trying to emulate Twilight (and just about every other movie in existence, honestly) with this movie, the number is low. I don't usually put faith in tracking, but I assumed I Am Number Four would take the top spot this weekend, not because Liam Neeson's not a draw, but because this kind of movie can succeed: look at Twilight for the answer. I can imagine that the Twilight series being far more popular as books helps, but there was plenty of marketing for this film for the last few months. Could it be that some teenagers who weren't discerning with Twilight are now old enough to not waste their money on everything? I can only hope.

Brett Beach: Doing some quick research, I see that DreamWorks bought the rights to the book 18 months before it was published back in February of 2009, so it seems natural this was a "buy anything Twilight-esque you can find" in the wake of that film's performance. With the book only six months old, it may be hard to gauge how popular the series is, and future films might prove to be, at this point in time. However, I also expected this to easily finish number one and, modest budget or not, if this ends up throwing under Jumper's $80 million domestic gross (that was based on an older book, though loosely) I would peg this franchise as a non-starter.

Reagen Sulewski: This is only about two-thirds of Jumper's opening weekend, which has to be troubling considering these kinds of films most definitely don't have legs. Unless you're Resident Evil, it's tough to build franchises around films that are going to wind up with around $60 million in final domestic box office. The problem here is kind of the opposite of Unknown - they made a film that looks like a couple of other films that people already didn't want to see. As much of a block of wood as Hayden Christensen is, he's still a lot better known than this dude they're trying to sell us in this.

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