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Well, it did better than Prom.

Kim Hollis: Monte Carlo, a romantic comedy for the teen girl crowd featuring Selena Gomez and Leighton Meester, opened to $7.5 million over the three-day portion of the weekend. Is this a good enough result for a small-scale film with a $20 million budget?

Brett Beach: Absolutely. I have been aware of this film's existence for months, but never felt any inkling to look up a plot synopsis, so I don't know if it's the potential audience's loss or not that it didn't make more, but the stakes were low anyway. Larry Crowne was angling for the older crowd and this film the younger crowd, both hoping to strike outside of the Transformers all-encompassing audience. Neither one really succeeded. At $20 million, this isn't that much less expensive than Larry Crowne, but then again, this doesn't star two of the biggest movie stars of my lifetime, which means it's a win. It'll make back its budget in the theaters here (barely) and then become a staple of girl sleepovers (assuming those are still happening in 2011).

Max Braden: I could see the studio being a little disappointed because maybe they think they have the next superstar in Selena Gomez. And from a per-theater standpoint, it performed on the low end. But I would be satisfied that this a stepping stone movie for Gomez, moving her from kid into teen roles without being too aggressive.

Reagen Sulewski: You definitely have to set your sights lower for films of this ilk, and with good reason - how many teenaged boys do you see wading into this film, compared to teenaged girls? Perhaps this isn't fair, but it's the way of the world, and boys would rather cut off a finger than see a female wish-fulfillment film.

David Mumpower: Max's point is well taken. Perhaps the best recent comparison for this is the brief attempt at transitioning Hilary Duff into mainstream movies. A Cinderella Story was quite successful, earning $51.4 million against a similar $19 million budget. Other than that, all of Duff's non-Cheaper by the Dozen solo outings fell in the $10-$17 million range. Gomez's first mainstream release, Ramona and Beezus, earned $26.2 million, but it did have the advantage of name recognition due to the popularity of the books. Monte Carlo's performance to date reflects the fact that there is some interest in Gomez. What we are doing right now is determining exactly how much.

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