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Shane Jenkins: I'm inclined to blame the INCREDIBLY AWFUL trailers. This looks terrible, and I'm someone who paid money to watch the other installments. I thought it was a Sci-Fi spin-off series at first.

Sean Collier: Shane, I thought it was a direct-to-DVD movie that was being marketed unusually heavily. To me, this one looked like Crisis in Generictown: Vampire Edition, and I'm shocked it did as well as it had, especially without a bankable star. Sony should be very pleased, and the distributors of Repo! should be noting all the money they lost in not going for a wide release, as this stuff appears very in.

Joel Corcoran: Sony should be moderately pleased with this result. At the end of its box office run, it should at least break even and might make a small profit, so post-theater income should be pure profit. And I agree with other comments about why this third installment has faded in the stretch. I think a prequel was the wrong way to go here - the better option would've been a continuation of the storyline established in Underworld 2. But I think there's enough juice left to go for a fourth installment.

Fat guys. We love 'em.

Kim Hollis: Paul Blart: Mall Cop was #1 for the second straight weekend, earning $21.5 million. It has a running total of $64.8 million after ten days. In terms of successful dumb comedies (i.e. Big Momma's House, Ace Ventura and the like), what do you see as a good comparison for this surprise?

Brandon Scott: It's hard for me to say, simply because I don't watch these types of movies. I know that it is a huge success, so Big Momma's House seems semi-apropos other than the fact that Martin Lawrence was already a known (star) quantity at the box office. This one is out of left field. I do know that I prefer there not be a sequel and I do suspect that I will not get my wish.





David Mumpower: I think Ace Ventura: Pet Detective is the best comparison at this point. Carrey was at the time a complete unknown to the part of North America that wasn't watching In Living Color...which was almost everyone. When that film made $72 million, it was a shocking result and the sequel's $37.8 million opening was one of the biggest box office shocks ever. Paul Blart is slotting between the two in terms of immediate success and it's got a decent chance to surpass When Nature Calls' final box office of $108.3 million. That's shock upon shock for me, but it reinforces the idea we've been espousing about Home Alone from way back when. In times of turbulent news events, people use dumb comedies as comfort food to help them get through the troubling days.

And Brandon, I think the odds of Paul Blart: Mall Cop not getting a sequel are about the same as the odds of Tom Cruise becoming Pope.

Eric Hughes: Now that's a scary thought. Even worse would be a Tom Cruise reigning over the world's Catholics looking like he did in Tropic Thunder.

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