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Tim Briody: I think the G-rating helped more than we think. Hit or miss, anything it earned in the US was gravy, anyway.

Pete Kilmer: Young teen boys love Mr. Bean with his slapstick humor and with the rise of BBC America and programming on various cable providers...more people have been exposed to Mr. Bean than ever before.

Marty Doskins: I agree with the previous comments about the G rating being the biggest factor. Pete, I've got to disagree with you about your "young teen boys" comment. Once a boy hits his teenage years, he's going to be *running* away from anything with a G rating. Unless he's been forced to accompany his younger siblings while mom and dad go see some grown-up movie choice.

Jim Van Nest: More on the G-rating. My mom decided she wanted to take my kids to a movie this weekend (we had plans so they didn't go, but that's not the point). Before she called she checked the listings and while she was leaning toward Underdog for sentimental reasons, Bean was also an option because she saw the G and knew that she didn't have to worry about something being inappropriate for an eight-year-old.

Max Braden: The Rush Hour comparison does make sense, but I still had the feeling that U.S. audiences had written off Atkinson's goofy characterizations after Johnny English. The G-rating does offer something for the back to school crowd, and I did see more advertising for this than any other movie recently.

David Mumpower: Actually, when we adjust Johnny English for 2003-2007 ticket price inflation, it's nearly identical to Mr. Bean's Holiday at $10.3 million.

So it was like I was declaring War. WARRRR!

Kim Hollis: War, the second teaming of moderate action stars Jet Li and Jason Statham, earned an estimated $10 million during its opening weekend. Is this less, more, or about exactly what you expected from the film? What do you think of this result?

Reagen Sulewski: It's a little less, but not extraordinarily so. Jet Li fans and Jason Statham fans are the same animal, so putting them both in the same movie doesn't add too much to the appeal for them. What has separated these kinds of action films from the pack in the past has been some kind of money shot or hook a la The Transporter's door-kick. War was basically marketed as "Statham and Li fight". So if you like that sort of thing, this is the sort of thing you'd like.

David Mumpower: It's a bit eerie how consistent the box office of these two actors is. The Transporter earned $9.1 million, The Transporter 2 had a holiday-inflated three-day total of $16.5 million, Kiss of the Dragon opened to $13.3 million, Unleashed made $10.9 million in its debut, and Jet Li's Fearless started with $10.6 million. This appears to be the range for the two actors' opening weekends.

The only true exception is The One, the first title where the two men faced off. It earned $19.1 million, but that was with a much larger scale advertising campaign than the rest of their respective titles had received. War is what The One looks like without that marketing onslaught...and allowing for the fact that The One looked much, much better.

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