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David Mumpower: I think Edwin has touched upon the fascinating aspect of this story. Major studios rarely do sub-$30 million movies these days unless they are horror or niche. Pain & Gain was made as a thank you for Michael Bay earning over $2.6 billion with Transformers. What has been forgotten in that time frame is the disaster that was The Island, a $126 million project that earned $90 million less domestically. Bay is no sure thing at the box office, even when he has stars in his films.

What was smart about Pain & Gain is that Paramount Pictures did not give Bay a blank check. Instead, he was required to be frugal with the production budget. It is for this reason that we are discussing the weekend performance as strong. Pain & Gain cost $31 million to produce with $5 million of that offset by tax incentives. Given the star power of Wahlberg and The Rock, the film was a safe bet to earn a profit. It has accomplished this feat. Whether the story needed to be told is a different matter. As Edwin mentioned, this is a shockingly grisly feature that is NOT for everyone. If you are considering watching it, consider yourself warned. There are aspects of the story that would make Eli Roth flinch.

Kim Hollis: I guess I was expecting more from Pain & Gain, though I'm having a difficult time quantifying the reason why. It's not like this had any sort of wide-ranging appeal, I guess. I love The Rock and so do lots of people, but I think he's kind of frightening-looking in this movie. Same goes for Wahlberg. I think I'd agree that only a certain sort of person will be drawn to the film.

Kim Hollis: The Big Wedding, a romantic comedy starring an entire host of well-known performers, managed only $7.6 million this weekend. Why didn't audiences respond?

Jay Barney: Whatever enthusiasm moviegoers showed for Pain & Gain was not there for The Big Wedding. This was not a film that I had much interest in seeing from the start, but the negative ratings at Rotten Tomatoes, the awful first weekend, and the impending rush of summer flicks is going to make this a totally forgettable endeavor. It is sad, too, because there are some names associated with this product, but the quality just was not there.

You have to think Lionsgate believed they had some amount of counter-programming for the early summer season. Oblivion last weekend. Pain & Gain this weekend. Iron Man 3 next weekend. Why not put a romantic comedy on screens against those films with a notable cast and put the word “wedding” in the title? It has been attempted in the past, and sometimes worked, in these pre-summer weeks. The Five-Year Engagement was on the schedule last year, even though that was not very well received. It was a little bit further into May, but Bridesmaids was a hit in 2011. In 2010 it was Date Night. This was supposed to be the option against all of the action films of summer, but it will be gone quickly. One wonders if Gatsby will fill that role in a couple of weeks.

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