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Seth Rogen takes on Shia LaBeouf in a cage match!

Kim Hollis: Superbad, the raucous sex comedy starring no one truly famous, finished in first place this weekend with $18 million, a decline of 46%. The movie has a running total of $68.6 million after ten days. Do you consider it a bigger success story than Disturbia, which earned $80.1 million in its domestic run? Why or why not?

Reagen Sulewski: Disturbia is more impressive to me, since it didn't have any obvious marketing hooks to capitalize on, and thrillers are tougher to sell than comedies, especially to teen audiences. Shia LaBeouf vs. Michael Cera & Jonah Hill is a wash for me, buzz-wise.

Shane Jenkins: I think Disturbia's success is a little more out of left-field. It was pretty obvious from the trailers (and the reaction they got) that Superbad was gonna kill - it was just a matter of how big it would go. Plus it was riding the coattails of its big brother, Knocked Up. Disturbia's trailer wasn't anything special, and there wasn't much reason to think that the Holes kid was going to pack in the crowds at that point, so I give the edge to Disturbia.

David Mumpower: I am of the opinion that Superbad is slightly more impressive for two reasons. The first is that it is going to make quite a bit more money than Disturbia despite having a similar budget (both are in the $20 million range). This is what matters most, so the better performer is the bigger surprise, all other things being (relatively) equal. The other is that Disturbia faced a much weaker market place. There were four other films in the top ten this weak than are estimated to earn $10 million or more. During Disturbia's month of box office domination, there were other four films to do that well if we combined all the weekends. Superbad is a bigger fish in a bigger pond.

Dan Krovich: I think if you go all the way back to the greenlight, they're very similar. The one difference is that by opening weekend, I think people had pretty much figured Superbad would be a mid $20s opener with a shot at $100M while I think Disturbia was still somewhat under the radar when it opened.

Pete Kilmer: I also tend to think that Disturbia was riding the wave of recent horror films of the last three years. I think it just squeaked in before the bottom fell out of the horror market. And granted, while it wasn't one of the torture porn films or a hack and slash, it was an intense thriller that appealed to a lot of those fans. Superbad, on the other hand, I think is a bigger success due to the fact that comedies will draw in more audience over the long run than horror films. Let's compare box office when Superbad ends and see where it stands compared to Disturbia.





Tim Briody: What Shane said, basically. People still don't believe you when you tell them Disturbia is the only 2007 release with three weeks as the number one film. Sure, the competition was a bit weaker when it ruled the month of April, and it's a teen Rear Window adaptation, but $80 million for it is pretty impressive. Superbad was going to be a big hit the second Knocked Up was.

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