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Tim Briody: Dear Will Smith: We don't really care about your kids. Sorry.

Brett Ballard-Beach: It's a very unsatisfactory opening for a $130 million "vanity"project. I do think there are a lot of elements at play here but I will focus on four that most struck me.

1) The backlash against Jaden Smith here is interesting since he was in The Pursuit of Happyness with his father and Smith the Elder produced The Karate Kid, and his presence/performance was well-received. Maybe at age 14, the gloves comes off and the Sofia Coppola punches come out? The accusations of nepotism really came to the forefront as did the "attempting to launch a franchise for his son" meme, which seemed to leave a bad taste in the critical evaluations and Internet navel gazing posts.

2) The film may have been better served as initially imagined: as a Jack London-esque tale of survival in the wilderness of the modern day. It might have been The Grey for the tween set.

3) I also heard a lot of rumblings concerning the bait and switch of featuring Will in the trailers and then (SPOILER) leaving him banged up and behind in the plane for the duration of the film.

4) The studio chose not to mention M. Night . . . at all in the promotional materials, which now leads to the continuing backlash against him. His name has, unfortunately, become toxic on many levels.

After Earth is going to have to survive based on a non US audience. Sony/Columbia spent $130 million on this, and with the bad reviews, it won’t make half that here in the U.S.

Kim Hollis: This is a dismal result and Sony had better be thanking their lucky stars that Will Smith is a huge draw overseas. While I can't really say that I'm surprised by the failure of After Earth, I do think I'm a little taken aback by just how hard it failed.

I tend to agree that trying to force the Jaden issue seems to have backfired for this film. His fame isn't organic at all. People aren't choosing him; he's being chosen for them. And of course, M. Night Shyamalan's name being attached to After Earth doesn't help. I remember when I figured out he was the director. I actively turned on the project at that point, and I actually thought some of the early trailers were intriguing. Problem is, the later trailers actually emphasize that the action is taking place around Jaden and make it clear that Will is pushed to the background some, so with people sensing the bait-and-switch along with Shyamalan fatigue, this movie had a tough ladder to climb.

David Mumpower: I will also offer some numerology here. Point one is that for all of his woes over the past decade, M. Night Shyamalan's titles have almost universally overachieved at the box office. The lone exception is Lady in the Water. Even The Happening was a solid performer relative to budget. Point two is that we have documented the uncanny consistency of Will Smith as a box office draw. Prior to Seven Pounds, he had eight consecutive $100+ million domestic earners. That's borderline unprecedented. And Seven Pounds, the "disappointment" grossed three times as much globally over its production budget. The third point is that while Jaden Smith was in The Pursuit of Happyness, he became a legit star in the remake of The Karate Kid. The idea of pairing him with his father in an action movie should be a huge draw.

All of the above is the rationale for why After Earth should be a mega-blockbuster. The fact that it was not is Point one about why Hollywood should not greenlight movies predicated upon computer simulations. Sometimes, the collation of data can and will lead to false conclusions. We all know that M. Night Shyamalan has gone wrong as a movie director. There is no avoiding that tautology. Similarly, Will Smith has lost momentum with his two most recent movies, Happyness and Men in Black 3. The latter film is the one that lingers in terms of damaging his brand. Why would audiences pay to see another sci-fi action movie of his after they were so displeased by the last one? And does anyone care about Jaden Smith at this point? I think he's going to be a celebrity for the next 50 years because of his pedigree and he also seems like a down to earth kid, all things considered. That's not enough to describe him as a movie star right now, though.

After Earth is a project that looks great on paper. Then, we get the visual of Jaden Smith being hunted by CGI predators as the words "M. Night Shyamalan" are displayed on the screen and everyone in the audience turns on the proceedings. Fair or not, BOP has always maintained that if a pair of movies look similar, the second release better not suck. We have witnessed this time and again over the years. Oblivion won the battle of release dates, and that placed After Earth in a position where it needed to be exceptional in quality. Anyone who has read reviews for it (or watched any of Shyamalan's last five films) knows that the opposite is true. After Earth will make more money than anybody will remember because both the actor and the director are popular overseas but this is yet another movie that would have been oh so much better if Shyamalan learned humility.

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