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David Mumpower: First of all, I think Brett's wife is the only woman alive who notices Tatum's ears over his...other parts. With regards to the opening, I would describe it as mediocre or, more politely, average. Given the star power involved and the premise, this should have been a much more popular film. Still, its performance is right in the range for a romantic comedy with a big name at the top of the cast. Edwin points to the push back from Valentine's Day as a tipping point. I maintain that pushing the movie up from May is where the real mistake was made. The people behind this decision wanted to capitalize on the burgeoning February market. What they did was make their product look inferior relative to The Vow and created direct demographic competition for their title in its first weekend of release. Had it stayed in May, it would have been a great counter-programming choice for women as May is generally action film-intensive. There also would have been Memorial Day box office inflation to enhance its bottom line. With a February release, its non-holiday weekdays are going to be negligible, which means the movie's opening weekend is all the more important. This is a What Went Wrong column waiting to happen. And most of the mistakes are with the distributor even if the movie is not very good. That hasn't stopped any number of romantic comedies from exceeding expectations over the past few years. A release date change should only be done when it gives a title a better chance at success. The opposite is true with This Means War.

Max Braden: That's a disappointing opening since, as others point out, this would have been prime material for Valentine's Day couples. Action for the guys, romantic comedy for the girls. It's a straightforward premise with three easily identifiable characters and looks a lot like Mr. & Mrs. Smith. Maybe it's too much to ask for Charlie's Angels numbers, but this McG flick should have done better.

Pure joy? Yes indeed.

Kim Hollis: Studio Ghibli debuted their latest animated masterpiece this weekend as The Secret World of Arrietty opened to $6.4 million over the three-day portion of the weekend. What do you think of this result?

Brett Beach: It should be able to vault past 1998's The Borrowers ($22 million) which is from the same source material and maybe double Ponyo's $15 million take, which would be the best possible result, domsetically speaking. I can't say I am ever happy that films are released here dubbed, but if this serves the purpose of introducing kids and adults to Ghibli and they move on to Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke and then some day gird themselves for Grave of the Fireflies, well then this gateway drug has served its purpose. Perhaps the next release can crack $50 million?

Matthew Huntley: "Masterpiece" may be too strong a word for this entry from Studio Ghibli, but "beautiful" and "thoughtful" certainly aren't. This is a good movie and I hope more people give it a chance. I expected it to start out slow, but if it shows just as strong of legs as Ponyo, which opened with about half as much, this could go on to make as much as $25 million, which would be a promising start toward cracking that $50 million barrier.

Also, Brett, I agree the Japanese soundtracks are always better than the English dubs, but Arrietty's is actually quite good.

Edwin Davies: This is slow, but steady and encouraging progress for a studio which has almost never set a foot wrong (with the possible exception of Tales of Earthsea, which to me is very much the Cars 2 of Ghibli's output) and keeps putting out incredibly beautiful and moving animated films that show just how amazing the medium can be. The film doesn't really need to make money in the States since, like all Ghibli films, it has done astonishingly well in Japan and the world in general, but this is a good indicator that they are starting to gain real ground domestically, and that will hopefully turn more people on to their truly stunning back catalogue.

David Mumpower: I am going to take a different point of view on this. I believe this performance is inflated a bit, because this is by far the widest a Studio Ghibli project has debuted in North America. As an example, Ponyo debuted in 927 locations as opposed to 1,522 for Arrietty. Howl's Moving Castle never expanded beyond 202 locations while 714 was the upper limit for their best movie to date, Spirited Away. While I am pleased to see Studio Ghibli receiving this sort of popularity on our continent, I do believe that this movie will perform like most major studio releases rather than run indefinitely as past titles from Studio Ghibli have done. Either way, I encourage all movie lovers who have yet to do so to track down some Studio Ghibli titles. If nothing else, you'll want to find out about the Catbus.

Max Braden: When I saw this title coming up on the release schedule, I thought "Nobody's going to know this is coming out, nobody's going to see it." I did finally see one ad for it during primetime tv last week. I don't think the name Ghibli means anything to audiences outside of the independent theater/film club crowd until maybe you mention their previous titles, which might evoke strong reactions for or against. $6 million is fairly impressive given the small audience they were going to reach.

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