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Brett Beach: This is a decent opening, and I don't want to throw it under the bus, but my opinion about this film underwent a 180 in recent weeks and I too thought it had a shot at low to mid-$20 million opening. The trailers and ads looked funnier than No Strings Attached, the plot sounded more intriguing (well, as a setup for two hot people to have meaningless hot sex needs to be), and it was from the director of Easy A. Is this a case of R-rated comedy fatigue? "Meaningless hot sex" comedy fatigue? People waiting for The Change-Up? Some of the women who would be rushing to check out JT busy at bachelorette parties? I don't know.

Bruce Hall: I think that the reboot has been replaced by the xerox. Just make the same damn movie again at a different studio with new actors. I know I am not alone in my thinking because if you go to IMDb and search "Friends With Benefits", the first result that comes up is actually "No Strings Attached". Talk about eerie.

Jim Van Nest - I think this is an okay result for a film that may be better suited for DVD anyway. You have two leads, both successful and well known...but neither of which has even been asked to carry a movie. When comparing this to No Strings Attached, I would have expected Strings to far out perform this one based solely on the fact that people know what they're getting with Kutcher and Portman. Justin Timberlake, while incredibly entertaining and absolutely hilarious on SNL, is on his first shot as a leading man and I think that has to be factored in. Once he starts to be taken more serious as a movie star (and not a singer who does movies), I would expect to see his box office clout grow exponentially.

Kim Hollis: I agree with Jim that this did about as expected, maybe even a bit better. Ashton Kutcher is consistent whether we like it or not, and Natalie Portman was skating on her Academy Awards heat at the time of the release of No Strings Attached. And yes, we pretty much have to compare the two films because they're so similar, even down to the fact that their female leads were both featured in Black Swan. Timberlake and Kunis are not quite established draws, but they are well liked, which helps. I also believe that the recent ads were very funny and probably did a lot to bring some extra business down the stretch.

David Mumpower: Jim touches upon a key aspect of this evaluation. Friends with Benefits stars Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake. These are the annoying chick from That 70s Show and the guy from N'Sync. Kunis has methodically built her reputation thanks to solid work in projects like Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Black Swan while Timberlake broke out in a showy role in The Social Network. So, they are on the upswing right now, but neither of their presences in a project sells tickets. This movie sold based on two factors: premise and trailer quality. Given those constraints, I see this as a solid debut for a movie I am confident will enjoy great legs and a warm reputation on the home video market. Friends with Benefits feels like a win to me.

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