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Kim Hollis: Olympus Has Fallen, the FilmDistrict thriller set in the White House, opened with $30.4 million this weekend. What do you think of this result?

Brett Ballard-Beach: I see a lot of upsides here - Director Antoine Fuqua's largest opening weekend, distributor FilmDistrict's largest opening weekend (and soon to be their highest grosser), Gerard Butler's biggest live-action weekend after 300 - as well as the fact that it just about outperformed the Schwarzenegger/Stallone/Statham trio of flops' combined final grosses, and it stacked up well against the latest Die Hard opening. If this has any kind of legs, it will push past that. too. The timing was right for an Act of Valor-ish, "America **- yeah" kind of action film that could be described as .... Die Hard in the White House. Kudos to Butler for exec producing and finding himself the right kind of role. On a side note, I think this will play Deep Impact to White House Down's Armageddon, meaning there are enough greenbacks to go around and nobody gets hurt (But since this is R-rated and WHD will be PG-13, I imagine, this opening is all the more impressive). The best review quote came from the Village Voice critic who noted that "there are parts of the country where this will play as less than total farce."

Felix Quinonez: I think this is a great result especially when you consider how many action movies with bigger name stars have flopped lately. I was expecting this to open in the high teens so I am very impressed. Also, its A- Cinemascore suggests that people seemed to be pleased. The only real problem I see is that it has GI Joe to compete with next weekend.

Bruce Hall: I think Brett kind of nailed the salient points here. But I would only add that for a generic looking potboiler starring the reliable but often bland Aaron Eckhart, the appealing but wildly uneven Gerard Butler, Morgan Freeman (again) playing Morgan Freeman, AND the North Koreans (really?) taking over the White House - a $30 million opening is akin to the parting of the Red Sea.

Which, I believe, Morgan Freeman could facilitate.

Edwin Davies: Brett touches upon the reason why I think this is pretty impressive; it's an action film released in 2013 that's actually doing okay. In any other year, I'd think that this was a solid result, but when you compare it to the films that have crashed and burned over the last couple of months, this looks pretty damn spectacular. Even more so when you consider that it looked really uninspired from all the ads, which suggests to me that the old "Die Hard in a [blank]" plot construction still holds a lot of appeal, so long as it's not "Die Hard in Russia."

Jay Barney: This is a very strong opening and I wouldn't be surprised if we are talking about this film as a success story for a month or so. First, putting it up against the production budget of $70 million and doing the math; this film should make it all back and then some when worldwide gross is taken into account. Also, the reviews and word-of-mouth seem to be positive to strong, so this is a product many people will probably go ahead and see. It also helps to measure this against the other action movies of the year so far, and by that measure it is also a success. Die Hard flopped domestically, Arnold and Stallone's returns to the big screen bombed, and a few other "actiony" movies have not done great. The studio should be smiling about the prospects for this one.

Max Braden: I associate this movie more with Gerard Butler than Fuqua, and for something that looks fairly similar in style to Gamer and Law Abiding Citizen, this is a huge improvement for him. I wondered about potential sensitivity to images of the White House being attacked (somehow this version looks more concerning than the more cartoonish takeover in the upcoming GI Joe: Retaliation) with a slight uptick in awareness of 9/11 due to Zero Dark Thirty recently, and recent saber-rattling by North Korea, but that doesn't seem to have a negative effect at the box office.

David Mumpower: I agree with Felix in that his point is the most interesting one to me. In a year where so many action films have died horribly, this Roland Emmerich knock-off has performed very well on opening weekend. With a respectable budget of $70 million and some overseas appeal, Olympus Has Fallen has elevated itself above much more storied competitors. Brett touched upon the John McClane aspect. I would add that this is over $5 million more than A Good Day to Die Hard earned, and that was a *holiday-inflated* total. I guess monument porn is finally back in vogue after the awkward post-9/11 years.

Kim Hollis: Until I heard a co-worked being all excited about seeing this movie, I didn't give it much thought. It looked terrible to me, like something I'd never want to see. After hearing a small bit of buzz amongst the type of people who don't necessarily hurry out to movies on opening weekend, I figured it had a chance at breaking out pretty well. I was still surprised by how much.

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