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Reagen Sulewski: This will probably read like blasphemy to some of our old-school contributors but ... airships?! Are they screwing with us? Also, this feels like someone completely misread the appeal of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, and then decided to wire-fu the crap out of it. It's not the sword-fights that people loved about those films, it was the comedy and sense of fun and adventure. This felt pretty tedious and pointless.

Most of us forgot he was alive in the first place.

Kim Hollis: Johnny English Reborn opened to $3.8 million, less than half of what the original earned in its North American debut. Do you believe this project was doomed from the start in North America? If not, what do you consider the project's fatal flaw to be?

David Mumpower: First of all, Johnny English Reborn was not made due to its North American appeal anyway. As much as I love Rowan Atkinson, his box office splits for his first three releases emphatically demonstrate that people on this continent do not love the Artist Formerly Known As Blackadder the way I do. Bean opened to $2.3 million on the way to a solid $45.3 domestic run while Mr. Bean's Holiday started with $9.9 million then ended up with $33.3 million. Johnny English slipped a bit with $9.8 million in its debut and only $28.0 million in total. With those three releases, Atkinson as the lead draw has returned $106.6 million in North America. Conversely, his international appeal is such that those same three titles have grossed $540 million overseas, meaning that 83% of his earnings have happened outside of North America. That's roughly five out of every six dollars earned. Given those parameters, a $3.8 million debut is the worst debut one of his films has had (Bean's $2.3 million was in only 242 locations) by a lot. Since it's already grossed over $100 million overseas, this will be the largest split to date between domestic and international takes. This is not unexpected but the fact that Johnny English Reborn may not earn $15 million domestically is.

Bruce Hall: My two cents would be that of all the things Rowan Atkinson is known for in the US, Johnny English is not foremost. Plus, the James Bond spoof has been kind of done to death, at least as American audiences are concerned. Austin Powers more or less wrung whatever juice was left out of that sub-genre by the turn of the century - again, at least for Americans. Rowan Atkinson is a rock star internationally, but in the US he doesn't have the same cachet.

Except of course, amongst the dedicated people who've gleefully followed his career since they were little kids, and know that "Kate" is short for "Bob". I don't know anyone like that. Not at all.

Samuel Hoelker: Has Rowan Atkinson been so bored that he makes sequels of his films wayyy after the first one has had any American relevance? Mr. Bean's Holiday came out ten years after Bean and this is eight years after the first Johnny English (and outside of a surprisingly good comedy/drama Keeping Mum, he's been absent from film). Domestically, these types of things rarely work out except with extremely high-profile franchises (which, like we learned last year, Cats and Dogs was not). Is it even worth it to bring these to America?

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