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Babylon 5 would have been more warmly received

Kim Hollis: Babylon AD earned an estimated $12 million over the four-day Labor Day Weekend. Its budget was in excess of $60 million. Is this an even bigger failure than expected?

Reagen Sulewski: Matthieu Kassovitz should definitely be skipping out on the gold-plated Hummer for the time being.

As much as I enjoy the broadening and widening of our movie culture, the French just have this bizarre sense of what makes for a blockbuster action movie. Their sensibilities are so removed from what North Americans want that this result seems so inevitable. Really only Luc Besson has managed to crack that, and even then just so.

Tim Briody: And, really, I think it earned a few million extra from the director going "no, really, this movie sucks."

Pete Kilmer: This movie was FUBAR'ed from the get go. With the massive studio interference the director claims, we'll never know if his unfettered version of the movie would be any good. Of course it's a failure. Huge.

Max Braden: It looked like Southland Tales, which starred the Rock and featured Justin Timberlake, and made less than a million on a few hundred screens. Smaller budget, but in the end they'll have both come up short $15-20 million against their budgets. Swap out Vin with any bigger action star you like and I don't think there'd be any noticeable change in the numbers.

David Mumpower: Well, it's going to make about $30 million against a negative cost in the mid-$70s and its campaign for DVD rentals started with, "I HATE MY OWN MOVIE!!!" So, this one is doing well only if following the Uwe Boll playbook is smart.





Daron Aldrige: Right, when put into context with its budget, this is a pretty big failure. It seems that every couple weeks or so this summer, something has underwhelmed or supremely disappointed, from Prince Caspian to Speed Racer to The Happening to The Love Guru to Meet Dave to The X-Files: I Want to Believe to The Mummy 3 to this. Considering that I didn't even know Babylon AD existed two weeks ago, it doesn't seem horrible until you look at the budget and the public drubbing the director is giving the movie.

Brandon Scott: Vinny D will still get work. He's got Fast and the Furious 4 in his back pocket. Director Kassovitz hated this with more fury than his great movie La Haine (translation Hate - see it if you haven't) could collectively conjure up. Babylon AD was DOA. in 2500 BC. Come on Diesel, you can do better. Give me Boiler Room 2 without Ribisi!!

Scott Lumley: I think when your own director comes out beforehand and trashes the film, you might be looking at a failure. What I really want to know is what happened to Vin Diesel? How did one of the coolest, nicest guys in Hollywood see his career follow a similar path to that of Ice Cube? Attaching Diesel's name to a project seems like instant death right now and I don't know how that happened.

Jason Lee: It grossed about the same amount as Statham's Death Race, but with a 25% larger budget and 50% smaller venue-average. I think this has to be considered a pretty big disappointment.

Sean Collier: What, you mean the action movie with no discernible plot starring the has-been bald guy directed by the guy who said that his own movie sucked? Nope, that's right about where I thought it'd land.

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