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Kim Hollis: While I agree that the budget makes Rock of Ages a disappointment, I'm also not really sure what more Warner Bros. should have expected. This is a film with a very, very limited audience. People who were between 10-22 in the '80s are probably going to find something to enjoy in this film (I definitely did) but that means that you are looking at a group of people who are currently between the ages of about 33-54. This is the prime audience that will choose to rent a film rather than go out to see it in the theater, particularly if it's questionable in any way. Also, since most of the music in this film would qualify as a "guilty pleasure," a lot of people probably don't want to make the public admission that they enjoy it by actually going to the theater in person.

Something stinks in here.

Kim Hollis: That's My Boy, the $70 million Adam Sandler comedy, opened to $13.4 million, the worst opening for a Sandler live-action comedy since 1996. What went wrong here?

Reagen Sulewski: Some people are going to point to the R-rating and I think that's certainly part of it, but I would say the bigger part of the story is that Jack and Jill and Just Go With It have made people gun shy about Sandler, and he's paying the price for these lazy premises now. He may actually, horror of horrors, have to make a good movie again.

Matthew Huntley: Reagan more or less hit the nail on the head. Plain and simple, the movie looked bad and unfunny. This is typical of most Adam Sandler comedies, sure, and not that I want to harp on it too heavily, but why would Sony allow the R rating? Surely the studio knows most of Sandler's fan base is comprised of teenage boys, who either couldn't get in or whose parents' red flags went off when they saw the restriction. Sandler hasn't starred in an R-rated film since Punch Drunk Love (which wasn't the usual demographic). Right away, it seems that's cutting the ticket buyers by at least 30% (or more in this case).

Secondly, Andy Samberg isn't the greatest or most reliable of movie sidekicks. In fact, he doesn't seemed poised to be a movie actor. I think his talents rest more with behind-the-scenes duties (writing, producing), but as far as performing, he's not the strongest link off the ol' SNL Alum chain. The previews make it look like he's merely Sandler's punching bag, designed to take hits and be the butt of his jokes. Not a huge stretch for him, and I think audiences were privy to this lack of ambition.

Where does the movie go from here? If it follows Sandler's typical track record of 50% declines week after week, it'll be all but gone by Fourth of July. Clearly, Sony had higher expectations for it going into the weekend.

Brett Beach: Actually Matthew, Funny People was R-rated as well and it opened better than this did. This is the first time Sandler has done an R-rated out and out raunchy comedy (Funny People was comedy-drama, Punch Drunk Love and Reign Over Me were seriocomedies with much smaller releases, and Bulletproof, way back in '96, was a buddy action comedy). I think an important factor is that Sandler did not have one of his longtime collaborators directing and/or writing and he had no part in the screenplay either. But, if I may be a moralistic a-hole for a second, I would like to think that at least some of America saw the trailers and said "Statutory Rape? Statutory rape? That's the high concept that sets this all in motion?" and were a little bit queasy, like i was. I give Sandler some small shred of credit for thinking there might be an audience for this. I don't know many others in Hollywood who could or would want to make this.

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