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Joshua Pasch: I think Josh is right on the money with his assessment. This is just a bit to high for us to really start cracking jokes about the Rock or CBS Films. It's also way too low for anyone to go around green lighting more R-rated Rock-staring action flicks.

Also, I know this may be a fairly obscure reference, but this opening reminds me a lot of Vin Diesel's A Man Apart from 2003. That was a similarly themed revenge flick with a straight action take - it too underperformed to the tune of an $11 million opening weekend.

Matthew Huntley: Not good enough, but acceptable. Many sites have discussed how this film's audience just kept growing since opening day (the only film in the top 10 to do so), so there may be some light at the end of the tunnel, perhaps enough for it to climb as high as $30 million and be considered a mild hit. (Wow - could word-of-mouth really be that strong?) Who knows, maybe the film's counter-programming approach will take it beyond just opening weekend, or at least until Tron opens.

Brett Beach: After reading that the character names are simply placeholders: Cop, Killer, etc., I was reminded of Walter Hill's existential 1978 heist/chase film, The Driver. This would seem to be a more commercially driven redo of that. I do think it's interesting that Dwayne Johnson (no Rock in sight here) would choose to do a souped-up hard R action flick at this point in his career, but maybe he's tired of being the genial tough guy, sees that there's no heir apparent for Stallone, Schwarzenegger and the like, and wants to try out a little bone-crunchin' bang bang. With the smallest budget of this week's wide releases and a few more weeks to reach $30 million (as Matthew suggested), this should satisfy CBS nicely, especially if it continues to grow an audience (even on a small scale).

Reagen Sulewski: I just plain didn't understand half of this film's marketing campaign. The football-themed one was just opening up the film to ridicule and drawing attention away from the action. The biggest mistake this film made was right in the beginning - you've got an extremely charismatic action star, known for his sense of humor and you stick him in a film where he's an unrelenting vector of anger. It's like using a Ferrari to tow a horse trailer - sure you can do it, but why? Johnson also has the problem that he's working off the debt from his kids' films, and action fans haven't forgiven him yet.

Michael Lynderey: Fledgling sounds about right. It won't shoot that far under the budget, but Faster really isn't a very good result for a Rock movie. Maybe I've been spoiled by all the numbers coming in for his non-action films, but your average genre star vehicle (even of the Lionsgate variety) usually comes in just a bit higher than single digits in three days. This is the fourth year in a row that's featured a B-action movie trying to break out over Thanksgiving weekend, and it's telling that Faster came in under what Hitman, Transporter 3, and the unmatchable Ninja Assassin pulled in. I guess children's films are really where it's at for action stars these days (though I would love to see Jason Statham star in a romantic comedy - "She's Expendable", perhaps?).

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