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Jay Barney: Turbo coming in at $30 million for the first five days of release is just fine. It will have a weekend to work with before it slows down because of Smurfs 2, but I’d expect its drop isn’t going to be too big. Monsters University is entering the final stages of its run, and while Despicable Me 2 is still the reigning champ for families with children, that picture is pretty much beating up on every other film right now. Turbo will have to rely on foreign receipts to make any money, but that was probably part of the plan all along.

Felix Quinonez: I think given the budget it's definitely disappointing but I am not surprised. I think a big problem with this was just its release date. Between Monsters University and Despicable Me 2, the last four weekends saw an animated movie at the top and Despicable Me 2 is still killing it at the box office, so maybe just waiting even a month wouldn't have been such a bad idea. Aside from that, Turbo never really seemed like a real summer contender. It looked like a lower level animated movie that should have been released during the off season, not in the midst of blockbuster season.

Tim Briody: It's fine, if still in the shadow of Despicable Me 2. It's going to be one of those movies that a few years from now we'll have forgotten about and go "it made WHAT?"

Max Braden: I think that's a terrible showing. In another era this should have been a $60 million opening. It's basically a mashup of Cars and A Bug's Life, which were both very successful. I suppose there's the animation glut factor at the moment, but it still surprises me. I refuse to believe this is any curse of Ryan Reynolds.

Okay, fine, I like cars and racing and I think the idea of a really fast snail is ridiculously funny and I'm annoyed that other people didn't like what I like. Hrumph.

David Mumpower; More than anything, what we learned with Turbo this weekend is that DreamWorks Animation is not invulnerable to flops like Flushed Away and Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas. Even after all the box office blockbusters they have experienced over the past decade, a bad concept is still an impossible marketing task. In hindsight, we also owe Rise of the Guardians an apology. The holiday title is going to look like Star Wars compared to Turbo's domestic total. Turbo is already out of the top three at the box office, meaning that on top of everything else, it's front-loaded.

Max actually touches upon the core flaw with the movie. It IS a mashup of Cars and A Bug's Life. That is the problem with it. Vaunted animation director Henry Selick made headlines yesterday when he lamented the lack of imagination in today's mega-budget animated movies. All of them are intended to be blockbusters so they are tested for mass appeal. Obviously, the director of smaller fare such as James and the Giant Peach and Coraline would be frustrated by such populist productions. In order to reach the lowest common denominator, a movie must target them and the perception in the industry, right or wrong, is that rehashed ideas are the safest play.

Also, there is a bit of DreamWorks Animation jealousy over the sheer volume of toy sales the Cars franchise has garnered for Disney/Pixar. I understand the attempt to create their own merchandising juggernaut, something the animation house has lacked since they ran Shrek into the ground. How to Train Your Dragon may yet evolve into that type of lucrative rainmaker, but Madagascar never did. Turbo seemed like a safe bet because it follows the same path as previously popular family films. And that is exactly the problem. The story lacks any originality whatsoever, relegating it into the derivative heap of cash grab animated movies. Audiences have developed a solid ability to sniff those out and ignore them.

Furthermore, I believe this is another example of the dreaded movie modeling system en vogue in Hollywood right now. These numbers look great on computer if there is no thought put into them. In fact, the practice is eerily similar to the "Similar Films" charts BOP posted with movie write-ups in our early days. Just because there are surface similarities between projects does not mean both will do well. Computer models fail to grasp this obvious fact as easily as human minds do. What happens is that decision makers defend choices by hiding behind their algorithms. That style of leadership blew up on DreamWorks Animation with Turbo, a project that never passed the laugh test...even when it was in theaters and people were theoretically encouraged to laugh with/at it.

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