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Sean Collier: It's hard to be sad with a result like that - especially considering that the five-day for this one just about matches the three-day for the second film. With the July 4th weekend throwing a big monkey wrench into things, that's good news. And it's a lot of money any way you slice it. One wonders, however, what this one would've done against less competition - Up still out, Transformers eating away at big portions of the audience, and all those fireworks and hot dogs. Fox should be happy, but there was a weekend somewhere in 2009 where this would've made more money.

Jim Van Nest: Maybe I just watch the wrong channels or something, but I was seeing ads for this one, literally, on every commercial break. While the amount brought in (especially the overseas business) is incredible...you have to think the Fox folks are a little disappointed this morning. I mean, Pixar opened Grumpy Old Man and a Scout to over $60 million in three days...how could the cutsie sloth and mammoth flick not at least match it? I'm sure they're not in any danger of losing money, but I'd wager the studio expected more out of this.

Jason Lee: Like Night At The Museum 2, I believe that this is a film that severely handicapped itself by moving from a proven release window (in Ice Age's case, early Spring and in Museum's case, holiday) to a summer release. It sandwiched itself between two of the most anticipated films of the year (Transformers and Harry Potter) and as a result, has made less over five days than what the previous release was able to make over three days.

Reagen Sulewski: What's kind of interesting to me is that even though the CGI animation bubble burst a couple of years back, and there's no such thing as an automatic hit anymore, a few of these titles got in before the bell, so to speak, and get to hold their heads above the pack despite being no better than any other random CGI movie. Ice Age is definitely one of them, and feels thoroughly generic, yet still gets to be sort of the second tier with Madagascar. And if you think about it, it all comes back to Scrat. Whoever came up with that idea earned Fox about a billion dollars.

One thing I will certainly give the producers credit for is dramatically improving the quality of the animation over the years. It started out very stylized but kind of clunky, and has transformed into a fairly slick looking product.

There are an awful lot of fluffy creatures under discussion here.

Kim Hollis: From a domestic perspective, how would you rank Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs against Monsters vs. Aliens and Up? How strong do you expect its legs to be?

Scott Lumley: I can't even make an educated guess here. Those foreign numbers are still boggling my mind. It's at $67 million after only five days on a weekend that's normally regarded as a sandtrap by distributors. This is most likely going to take in at least $160-$170 million domestic, which would make it really successful all on its own, but when you figure in the foreign markets, this one is going to be an absurd success. In reference to Monsters vs.Aliens and Up, they're going to finish Up, MVA then Ice Age.

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