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Jim Van Nest: I think it's a nice opening aided by the fact that zombies are "in" right now. With the success of The Walking Dead, everything with zombies right now is a far easier sell than it ever has been. Kudos to the studio for capitalizing.

Shalimar Sahota: Yeah, it certainly helps that zombies are currently prominent in our films, TV programs, videogames and comics right now. But Warm Bodies stands out by not just being a run-of-the-mill mindless zombie killing movie. A romantic comedy where one half of the romantic leads is actually a zombie is a risky idea that could have turned people away. I just think it's great to see that people were willing to take a chance on something that's a bit of a break from the conventional. Now we just need to have this followed up by a zombie musical... Dead Side Story.

Max Braden: I agree that Warm Bodies is the non-Twilight. This is the movie for rebellious teens who think Twilight is too commercial and a sellout to the undead genre. This is where the cool teens go... while still consuming a clearly teen movie. I think the better comparison is Zombieland. Zombieland had a higher profile cast, and opened to just under $25 million three and a half years ago, so I'd say $20 million is a nice opening. I really liked seeing the ads each time they came on TV, so I expect that they had something to do with this opening too.

David Mumpower: Reagen is wrong, but he is also right. Simon Pegg should put down the phone because Shaun of the Dead is not a zomromcom; it's a zombromcom. Bromance before romance, dude! He is right that Twilight and the young adult-inspired dreck released in its wake isn't the target here. Warm Bodies is the closest thing to Zombieland we have seen since that movie came out three and a half years ago.

Every aspect of Warm Bodies demonstrates a novel amount of creativity. This goes straight down to the posters for the movie, which are the most clever and thematic batch in recent memory. The last group that stood out to me like this were the posters for Watchmen. No, that is not a great comparison in terms of overall movie perception but I am just talking about print branch of the marketing. BOP's front page is inundated with Warm Bodies posters right now. Each and every one of them cracks me up.

People demonstrate this sort of attention to detail that people only when A) they are paid to do so or B) they are genuinely proud of a film. Warm Bodies falls into the latter category. It is a small scale masterpiece in terms of good ideas brought to fruition. I am thrilled that it did so well on opening weekend. I get the vibe that it will be remembered as the best zombie movie of 2013, not the much more heavily marketed World War Z.

Kim Hollis: I'm really happy this film did so well. I like Nicholas Hoult (largely because of About a Boy, but I also enjoyed his performance in X-Men: First Class), and Jonathan Levine is an interesting director (50/50 is seriously a *great* film). I don't really think this film even has a comparison, because while it has bits and pieces of Shaun of the Dead, Twilight, Zombieland and probably other things I'm not considering, the film has emerged as its own unique little entity. I think it's fascinating that you can see shelves upon shelves of this type of supernatural romance in stores. It's become quite the cottage industry.

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