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Tom Houseman: I'm going to answer this question with an unqualified maybe. Obviously Megamind was going to open bigger than Dragon, as this one had Will Ferrell and Brad Pitt behind it, while Dragon had Gerard Butler. But Dragon was considered a wild success because of its Tyra Banks-esque legs. Will Megamind perform similarly? It's entirely possible. If it cracks $200 million it will be a success. Anything less and it has to be seen as a failure.

Reagen Sulewski: I have to agree with those that are holding some judgment in reserve. Animated films that aren't Pixar, Shrek (or for some bizarre reason) or Ice Age have been throwing darts at this general area of an opening weekend for some years now. If you're budgeting with this kind of opening in mind it's hard to go wrong. Whether you get to $150 million or $250 million is up to how well you did at making your movie. I get the feeling this one comes in towards the lower end of that range but these films live on forever on DVD.

Personally, I feel they did a good job getting up to this point for the opening after some of those terrible initial commercials. If they'd stuck with the rapping theme, we'd be talking about what a disaster Paramount had on its hands.

Michael Lynderey: Color me hopelessly prejudiced, but there have been so many of these films this year - the Despicable Dragon batch - playing out the same box office story over and over again - good to great reviews, an opening that's deemed a disappointment by some, and then legs that come maybe not-so-out of nowhere to get that franchise going. Megamind always looked like yet another one of those films to me, and, while I don't think we're going to see $200 million happen here, it's still going to end up a win. The era of CGI just isn't coming to a close anytime soon, and this formula (high-concept premise, big voice stars, meaty release date) just works and works and works. If you know what you're doing - and most of these filmmakers do - there's no way to fail.

Still struggling to find one funny thing in the commercials for this film...

Kim Hollis: Due Date, the Warner Bros. comedy with unpleasant reviews, opened to $32.7 million. What do you take from this result?

Josh Spiegel: I will admit that I figured this movie would have opened a bit higher. Maybe that can be attributed to the early November opening, but I'm still kind of surprised that this movie didn't hit at least $40 million in its opening. It's got a clear, simple concept; it stars one of the biggest movie stars of the past few years and a comic rising star; and it's directed by the guy from The Hangover. What's more, I can't blame the marketing. There have been constant ads for this movie since July. So, obviously, this number isn't shameful, but I wonder if the studio heads are a bit confused that Due Date didn't make more money, and if it's a bit of nasty foreshadowing for what may happen to The Hangover 2.

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