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Bruce Hall: Could this be a little of that "Dubiously Necessary Sequel" issue we've gotten so much mileage out of lately? Although the first three American Pie films were solid earners, I'd hardly call these characters iconic. The real question for me is: Who Cares? You could blame this on The Hunger Games, and a lot of people whose jobs depend on it will do just that. I'll even concede that opening the fourth installment of everyone's favorite pie f***g franchise on Easter weekend might not have been the best idea. But I am also hard pressed to think of another time of year where more people would care about yet another American Pie movie than they do now. You can get out your slide rule and analyze this to death but the simplest answer is just that not as many people CARE any more.

I sure don't. The first pie f*****g movie was worth a chuckle but I was sort of done with it after the second one. The title doesn't even make any sense any more. Of course it's an American Reunion. They're Americans. So if you want to go see it with the uninitiated, you have to explain the whole pie f*****g thing from 12 years ago and no, it has nothing to do with the song, and by then it's not funny, it's just kind of gross and stupid.

Then again, this was a $50 million movie. It's going to make a profit, and a nice tidy one when all is said and done. So at the end of the day this is all academic. I doubt we've seen the last of this franchise, and even the modest success this film is likely to enjoy may be enough to revive other '90s mainstays. Anyone up for There's Something (Else) About Mary? Wayne's World 3? Dumberer and Dumbererer? With two jowly old guys well into their 50s farting and making faces?

Don't laugh. I was only kidding about two of those.

Kim Hollis: It's a good thing you're only kidding about two of them, because for those who are unaware, Dumb and Dumber 2 is filming in September. Really.

David Mumpower: This is similar to the television returns of 90210 and Melrose Place. There is a fine line between welcome sentimentality and abject desperation. I disagree that the weekend of release matters in that I have always maintained that any film can triumph at any point on the schedule if there is desire for it. The Hunger Games is the absolute extreme of this philosophy. What went wrong with American Reunion is not the date of release nor the marketing campaign. It's the cast. We can tapdance around the subject all we want, but this is the elephant in the living room. All of these people are cautionary tales about the logical conclusions for most young celebrities in the industry. They make for better "Where Are They Now?" conversations than anchor players in a franchise independent of whether American Pie was once popular...and I say that as someone who owns all of these titles, even the inferior American Wedding, the one that ruined the franchise.

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