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Brett Beach: I wonder how many fans of Zack Snyder showed up for this and how much it would have hurt or helped to emphasize "from the director of 300 and Watchmen" in the advertising. Would that have been silly for a PG-rated animated film? Perhaps. I share Bruce's feelings about 3D and effects up to a point (but not the War of the Worlds dis, tho) and think that an unknown would-be franchise in 3D would probably be met with some skepticism from parents already burned by paying more for the funny glasses. Per Kim's question, I don't think that this will make much past its budget worldwide. I am not sure what it might take for a film to be a money loser nowadays (is it possible when all is said and done?) but I am amazed that they spent that much on it.

Matthew Huntley: Given Bruce's testimony, I am now more curious to see it. I'll actually see anything, but when I first saw a preview for Guardians with How to Train Your Dragon, I was less than enthusiastic. There's just something about talking/fighting owls that seems kind of ridiculous (I know, I'm able to accept talking toys, talking ogres/donkeys and chipmunks, but for some reason, owls is strange to me). My point is that if I can be made more curious to see it, families probably can, too, and so I can imagine strong legs for this movie, especially if the word-of-mouth is positive. It doesn't face too much in the way of competition (Secretariat may be its first formidable foe), so during the month of October (before Megamind comes out in November), it could climb as high as $60-70 million. But given the budget, P&A costs and theater shares after so many weeks, this is clearly a case of too little too late. Internationally, I would say it needs to make at least $200 million to start breaking even. Only time will tell if it can get there.

Edwin Davies: I have to admit that I had heard absolutely nothing about this film up until about Thursday of last week. That's partly because I live in England and the film hasn't reach our shores yet, but I like to think that I'm fairly clued in about this sort of stuff, especially when the film is directed by a major director, like Hack, sorry, Zack Snyder. So I've had to do a bit of research.

The main thing that struck me was the way in which every article mentioned how popular the books are, yet how absolutely no one seems to have heard of them or read them. The opening seems to put it into that sub-genre of "children's literature that is popular enough to get adapted into a film, but not popular enough to get Harry Potter numbers." If we look at The Spiderwick Chronicles, a film which similarly was based on an apparently popular series, opened to $19 million in February 2008 and finished with a hair over $71 million, I think we'll get a rough sense of how Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole will fare. If it holds up well next week, giving an indication of its legs overall, it'll probably make $70 million, but I think the lukewarm response to the film suggests that it'll probably wind up closer to $60 million, falling well short of the pre-marketing budget, at least domestically. Once international receipts and DVD come into play, it'll make its money back, but I don't think there will be enough there to justify turning it into a franchise. Unless we're talking about a Land Before Time style franchise with dozens of straight-to-DVD sequels.

Reagen Sulewski: I mostly stand by my "Owls? Really? Owls? That's what we're going with?" comments. I also have to agree with those that are looking at the long tail for this one, although this is starting somewhat in the same hole that The Golden Compass did (though with far less scrutiny). I wouldn't rule out the possibility of an ill-advised sequel coming along if international box office does well, but I would hope that Zack Snyder has better things to do with his time.

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