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Max Braden: Stripping Lautner naked of all the teen chicks clinging to his body might seem like a good idea on paper, but it's not going to pay off. All those girls know where the beef is, but where's all the angst? I agree that after Twilight this number doesn't look great, and makes us think he'll need more boost to have a big career. But Lautner does get to say that his movie opened bigger than Robert Pattinson's Remember Me at $8 million. This weekend he was also competing against established action guy Jason Statham and beat him. And Statham himself opened The Transporter to $9 million, crank to $10 million, and Death Race and Transporter 3 in the $12 million range. By the numbers, that's not bad for Lautner, and he's only getting started. And on that point, I gave Selena Gomez a thumbs up for leading Monte Carlo as a transition film, so I feel obligated to say Lautner succeeded here as well.

Kim Hollis: Killer Elite, the film that finally pairs Robert De Niro and Jason Statham (?), opened to $9.5 million for fledgling distributor Open Road Films, the AMC Entertainment/Regal Cooperative. What aspect of this film is a bigger story to you - the box office, the casting, the joint theatrical exhibitor venture, or Clive Owen's mustache?

Edwin Davies: The box office is the aspect that leaps out at me, if only because it seems to illustrate how far Robert DeNiro has fallen. If his presence can't induce even the token amount of curiosity required to make the film open outside of Jason Statham's wheelhouse then his reputation really has taken a hit over the last couple of years. It's kind of sad, really. I wasn't aware of the joint theatrical exhibitor aspect of this release until today, and now that I am the result seems less horrendous than it did since, although this opening is pretty much in line with Statham's other films, the budget ($70 million) is about twice what his films usually cost. That two companies are sharing the cost and, most likely, the loss makes this seem like less of an unmitigated disaster than it might otherwise have been. Unlike Clive Owen's moustache, which is still every bit as terrible. Unless there's a scene in Killer Elite where he tears it off to reveal that it's an intentionally terrible disguise then there really is no excuse for that shoddy upper lipwork.

Bruce Hall: This film was the sort of small ball USA Movie of the Week flick that would have passed for a big budget event back in the 1980's. Now, not so much. But for me, the biggest story was how few kills Jason Statham had. I know, this is supposedly based on a true story - but the whole "Killer who's given up killing but has to kill anyway to save a life" thing has been cooked to a crisp. Leave the regrets to MacGyver, Statham. Murder, death, kill. That's what you do. Get with the program, guvna.

Brett Beach: Is the 'stache really that bad? (I know my fellow BOPers will set me straight). The biggest story for me is distributors teaming up to make a movie. That sets off all kinds of bells, sirens, and whistles with me. I don't think I like it. The 2nd biggest story is discovering this past week that this is "based on a true story" and set in the early '80s. As for the box office, well, it throws under by nearly half the opening for the excreable "action" flick Righteous Kill, suggesting that outside Focker-ville, DeNiro's box office trends late in his career are more killer than elite.

Max Braden: This is like pairing Clint Eastwood and Charlie Sheen for The Rookie; in a way, they're both out of their depth and nobody wins. Couldn't they have just added De Niro and Owen to the Expendables sequel? Couldn't Statham have pulled some acrobatic martial arts move and torn that mustache off Clive Owen's face right at the beginning of the movie? (Actually more embarrassing than Clive Owen's mustache is getting your ass kicked by 68-year-old De Niro. I'm still wary of whether I could take Mike Tyson, but I'm pretty sure I could take De Niro and his elbows of fury.)

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