New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

Max Braden: Visually, I thought the trailer looked a lot like Tangled (from Disney Animation), which also depicted a medieval girl breaking out on her own. (Is the horse funny in Brave?) Tangled opened to $48 million at Thanksgiving a year and a half ago and went on to gross $200 million. Just based on that comparison I'd call Brave's opening a positive.

David Mumpower: Max, the one caveat I would add is that for Thanksgiving releases, the five-day total is more applicable since Wednesday and Thursday (the actual holiday) perform like weekend days as well. Tangled's five-day take of $68.7 million is in line with this number although even after box office inflation, Brave will come out slightly ahead once we add in its Monday/Tuesday take.

Jason Barney: The $66.3 million is a good opener for this summer movie season and Disney/Pixar have to be happy. I had read a couple of estimates pegging this in the mid to high 50s range, but I thought it would do better. So the opening is about in line with my own expectations. The concerns about kids not seeing this animated movie because of the main character being female were odd. Families have kids - cousins and friends going to the movies together is a great getaway. When it is family entertainment for the youngsters, I don't think the gender of the main character has anything to do with who sees a film. Brave should play well going into the July 4th weekend, and I would expect it is going to do really well against the openers next week. I brought my son to see it, and he liked it. My brothers brought their kids. This will be the movie of choice for families until Ice Age.

Bruce Hall: Cars 2 was the curtain being pulled back - even Pixar was capable of creating garbage! Reviews were almost immediately poor, word-of-mouth was poor, and even the people in the theater with me when I saw it felt it was poor. And yet that film enjoyed an opening similar to the one Brave just turned in. One big difference is that this time around, there was another option. Maybe you were one of the $20 million worth of families who are only now in a position to take four people to see Madagascar (stupid economy). If not, you might have looked at the trailers for Brave and seen the same things I did. This is a "princess film," so there's bound to be some variation on the pretty girl tough enough to be a guy who just wants to grow into her own woman kind of thing; the duty element. This is a difficult tightrope to walk, because such a film HAS to empower its female audience without driving away the boys. All things considered, I am compelled to give for Brave full credit for opening as well as it did; I believe it's Pixar's 13th straight number one opening. I need a pretty good magnifying glass to find much wrong with it.

Felix Quinonez Jr.: As it was pointed on the weekend wrap up this opening falls pretty much in line with most Pixar openings, which is a really good place for a movie to start. I'd have to call this a win especially after how badly Cars 2 was received. I thought since Pixar built so much of its reputation on putting out quality films that Cars 2 would have hurt its brand a bit more but I'm glad to see that wasn't the case. But I'm even more glad to see that this movie got good reviews. They might not have been great but it was definitely a step in the right direction.

Daron Aldridge: Since over the last 11 years, nine of 11 Pixar films have opened between $60 and $70 million, there shouldn't be much in the way of shock that Brave pulled in numbers right down the middle. In my opinion, the most concerning issue for Disney should be the aforementioned drastic uptick in ticket prices over the last decade hasn't translated into a comparable rise in dollars. Which David pointed out means that Brave is the lowest ticket seller since Remy's movie five years ago. Yet, they probably aren't too concerned since the merchandise and legs will likely bridge the gap easily. Matthew, while the reported $185 million budget seems over-the-top, it's actually pretty well in line with the cost of the last six Pixar films that ranged in budget from $170 to $200 million. So, box office-wise, Brave seems to be status quo for Disney-Pixar.

Kim Hollis: I think this is a fine result as well. I actually thought Brave might suffer a bit, for all of the reasons mentioned above. I do think it was a difficult film to market - unlike Madagascar 3, there is no Polka Dot Afro Circus to serve as a catch in Brave. There are some funny bits, but putting them in the trailer reveals too much. So, the film looked beautiful but I can see where some families might have struggled to find the wide-ranging appeal.

Continued:       1       2