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Daron Aldridge: Box office-wise, $16.3 million comes as the best case scenario because of the very niche appeal of the movie and even the book, which is about $5 million higher than I expected. The frightening part is the fact that the studio gave this movie such a large budget (a reported $70 million) and I personally didn’t see where the money went. Unless Rufus Sewell is commanding a bigger salary than I thought or the book’s author Seth Grahame-Smith fleeced them on the book rights and then again on his screenwriting paycheck.

This is where I will part ways with the primary criticism heaped upon the film – the level of campiness. I know this ages me but I was working at a theater with Abe’s older cinematic sister film Buffy the Vampire Slayer came, so I initially expected at least that level of camp. (I vividly remember a young couple that left the movie after 30 minutes because “it’s just silly.” To which I couldn’t help but think, “Did you really think with that title it would be a true horror film?”) Admittedly, I haven’t read the book but the friend I saw it with did and we talked about it beforehand. From his description of the novel, it seemed to follow Smith’s novel’s dry, direct approach. Anyway, I actually felt playing it straight was the best way much like Edwin said (sorry, David but I guess I’m the anomaly to your non-American appeal theory). Don’t get me wrong, I would in no way classify it as a very good film. But I would have truly hated the film if it had been over-the-top campiness. Of course, I am one of the few that thought the non-tongue-in-cheek approach was the best way they could have made Cowboys & Aliens.

Kim Hollis: The more I think about this movie the more I dislike it. I don't even care if they took the straightforward approach (though I do think campy would have been more fun). The movie is just boring. The lead character has the charisma of a pile of wood. The tertiary characters are silly. The villain is...not that menacing and not particularly interesting. And the action is hazy and ridiculous. I'm not surprised at this opening, but I am disappointed in the final product.

What kind of bird...are you?

Kim Hollis: Moonrise Kingdom increased 52% this weekend to $3.4 million. It has a running total of $11.6 million. What do you think of its platform release performance so far? What are your expectations for it over the next couple of months?

David Mumpower: To my mind, the stunning aspect of Moonrise Kingdom's performance to date is that it still hasn't surpassed 400 exhibitions yet. $11.6 million is earth-shattering box office for such a small scale release pattern. Let me use an arbitrarily selected comparison film, The Artist. The reigning Academy Awards champion for Best Picture, The Artist required 58 days in theaters to reach this amount. Its per-location average during its first five weeks in release was $11,340. Moonrise Kingdom is at $16,873, roughly 50% better. And it is paramount to note that Moonrise Kingdom has managed this in over triple the locations. The more expansion a movie has, the lower its per-location average should be. Moonrise Kingdom is wiping the floor with The Artist in the simplest terms possible. It is selling $1.50 on the dollar thus far against the defending arthouse champion. Will it maintain this pace long term? Almost certainly not. The Artist earned 75% of its domestic revenue after its second month in theaters. That's the power of an Academy Awards favorite on display. Thus far, Moonrise Kingdom has wrecked it, though. I find that amazing.

Edwin Davies: I've been very impressed with the performance of the film so far. It started great with a record-breaking limited release weekend (it holds the record for opening weekend per-theater average for a live action film, and it ranks ninth overall behind a host of Disney animated films) and has performed consistently well since then. Going forward, I wouldn't be surprised if it eventually overtakes The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou to become Wes Anderson's second most successful film (it only needs to make more than $24 million to achieve that) which would be a great result for a really terrific film.

Max Braden: I've heard plenty about Moonrise Kingdom (though I listen to NPR all day) so I'm surprised too it hasn't reached wide release yet. That's pretty impressive. I think the success here is largely due to Anderson's name. That pedigree is a huge selling point; anybody else, and I doubt this project would have gotten the initial attention from press to keep it going. And I wouldn't be surprised if I asked my friends about it, that they'd know Wes Anderson made it, but they wouldn't be able to tell me who's in it or what the plot is about.

Samuel Hoelker: My theater has been showing Moonrise Kingdom for the month of June so far. We opened it in two theaters, and sold out every show after 1 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. We cancelled other films to put in a third theater of Moonrise Kingdom, also which sold out. Its opening weekend was the most successful a film had ever done at my theater opening weekend, beating out Black Swan by over $10,000. We weren't even the only theater in Boston showing it that weekend. Since then, we've had it consistently on two screens, sometimes selling out shows on weekdays. Even though it has expanded into just about every multiplex in the city, we still sold out multiple shows on Saturday and Sunday. I've never seen anything like this in my three years at my theater, even when we had Midnight in Paris and The Tree of Life showing on seven of our nine screens. I don't see this slowing down any time soon.

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