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Kim Hollis: I think that the best thing that Marvel has done is to make enjoyable, crowd-pleasing films in the lead-up to The Avengers. I disagree with Bruce about Iron Man and still believe it to be one of the four best superhero movies ever - and I say that as someone who genuinely disliked Tony Stark the comic book character. Thor was a lot of fun, and Hemsworth was perfectly cast for the role. I had low, low expectations for Captain America, but I'll be damned if I didn't enjoy the hell out of it. The only misstep has been the handling of Hulk. I thought the first version was deadly dull to the point that I never even bothered to see the Edward Norton version. The good news for Avengers is that Mark Ruffalo will play the Bruce Banner role this time around, and who doesn't love him? Anyway, I do think that Marvel has built up plenty of goodwill toward the majority of the characters in the film, and people love Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark. Add the fact that the Whedonites will be out in full force whether they know the character or not, and you've got a pretty solid build-up to the 2012 release.

David Mumpower: I agree that the casting is the key aspect in the What Went Right category. Edwin is ten thousand percent correct about Robert Downey Jr. and I concur with Bruce about Chris Evans making Captain America more engaging. Also, while I had huge reservations about Chris Hemsworth, someone whose natural accent makes him utterly unintelligible, his performance in Thor is quite winning. I like Captain America so much more as a character than Thor, yet the latter is a vastly superior movie. All of that is one man's opinion, though. What cannot be denied is that between Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Thor and Captain America, we are discussing $360 million worth of opening weekends. These four movies have averaged a $90 million debut. Considering the wildly disappointing performance of Superman Returns, I am blown away by Marvel's ability to develop less established comic book characters into bona fide box office gold.

Maybe next we can mix and match Ashton Kutcher/Justin Timberlake and Natalie Portman/Mila Kunis

Kim Hollis: Friends With Benefits opened to $18.6 million this weekend. What do you think of this result?

Edwin Davies: I was expecting it to at least break the $20 million barrier because, based on the ads, this seemed a heck of a lot funnier than the eerily similar No Strings Attached, which opened to $19.6 million back in January, and because it is the only half-decent romantic comedy to be released for a while now. Then again, NSA had the dual advantage of being released at just the right time to capitalize on the success of Black Swan and *not* coming at the tail end of a long and storied parade of R-rated comedies, as Friends With Benefits does. Considering that it didn't have the buzz or uniqueness of No Strings Attached, for Friends With Benefits to open within $2 million of NSA's opening is pretty good, and I wouldn't be surprised if word-of-mouth carried it to a final total in the same ball park as NSA's $70.6 million.

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