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Oh boy! A crappy looking action flick!

Kim Hollis: Armored, from Sony's Screen Gems arm, opened lower than expectations at $6.5 million. Why didn't this one strike a chord with consumers?

Josh Spiegel: The marketing for Armored was always very low-key; frankly, I feel like I saw an ad for this movie almost a year ago, so some audience members may have assumed this was already out or something they'd find direct-to-DVD. Even though the plot may have seemed a bit nice to some folks who're in need of money in trying times, they may not have wanted to see the guys taking the money for themselves in said hard times become the villains. Also, this is a bad weekend to release anything new, as the post-Thanksgiving hangover takes full effect at the multiplex.

Tim Briody: The weekend after Thanksgiving is still one of the few remaining box office dead zones that exist. While quality will still succeed here, it's usually a holdover from a few weeks ago that does (see: Blind Side, The). Audiences are aware that anything new is a turkey and despite ridiculous amounts of advertising, they still stayed away.

Sean Collier: I also remember seeing previews for Armored about a year ago, so the delays until now were an indication to me that there were problems. Audiences at large must've felt the same way - with no buzz and no word of mouth, the film fell flat off the bat.





Michael Lynderey: Armored always looked like a B-movie, and this isn't the right time of year for a humorless action thriller - even one with toned-down PG-13 violence. Could it have done better if it stuck to its original September release date? Perhaps. But I would never have pegged it as scaling much of a double digit opening - the plot isn't particularly arresting (no pun intended), the cast are recognizable but not A-list stars, and not screening the movie for critics was like an admission of guilt (even though Armored wasn't even a bad movie).

George Rose: What about this movie suggested a chord was going to be struck? The cast is bland, the action uninspired and the plot lacks anything resembling depth. This would have fared much better in September, a time when nobody expects much of any of the releases. It didn't need to open to $20+ million, but even breaking $10 million would have made this appear to be a smash hit. But coming out just after 2012 and New Moon, and just before Avatar, made this a clear choice of films to be avoided. There's not enough time or money over the holidays to see every crap movie that comes out, and not much about Armored helped it stand out in the busy crowd.

Reagen Sulewski: This is about standard for a December generic action flick, but did anyone else feel like they inverted the cast in this? You have Laurence Fishburne and Jean Reno in your film - and your leads are Matt Dillon's googly eyes and the guy from Studio 60 that no one remembers? Not that that film becomes a big hit either, but I'm just sayin'.

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