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Kim Hollis: Scary Movie 5, the spoof movie that was beaten to the punch by A Haunted House earlier this year, earned just $14.1 million, the lowest opening ever for the franchise. What do you think of this result?

Jay Barney: Well, Scary Movie 5 will probably make back its production budget in the time that it has in theaters, but it is going to have a totally ignorable presence. This one is going to do so poorly I hate to admit that I saw one or two of the others in the theaters. I doubt I will see this one. The reviews are terrible, and I have to wonder if this is going to have an even more significant drop than the average horror film. I guess this is a different genre, but a parody about horror films that lacks any excitement or interest is going to spend very little time on screens. It will have a place in the top 10 next week because so many films are several weeks into their runs and making less than $10 million, but Scary Movie 5 is going to be gone quickly. It won’t be a failure, but nobody is going to care one way or the other.

Brett Ballard-Beach: For the third time in three years, Dimension Films has attempted to re-launch one of their signature franchises from the late ‘90s/early ‘00s and like Scream 4 and Spy Kids: $$D 4D, this is on track to be the lowest grossing of its series by far, and like those won’t clear the $40 million bar. It won’t be a money loser by any means (with a budget of $19 million) but it is sad to see a series devolve from such great heights financially and critically (um, relatively speaking) to becoming just another Friedberg/Seltzer-esque zero sum piece of junk. When A Haunted House steals your mojo, you have hit the dark end of the tunnel indeed. Someone needs to take the spoof genre off life support and use the parts for better purposes.

Matthew Huntley: The first question Scary Movie V has us asking is, why was this movie made? Aside from the usual commercial reasons, why, practically speaking, was this movie made? Do the filmmakers really think the pop culture references they target are worth spoofing? Or are even funny? Aren't people like Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan spoofs in and of themselves? Do they really need to be featured in a movie? They're jokes, sure, but not funny jokes (they're more of the pathetic variety). And what movies are they even making of this time around? Honestly, I don't know and I don't care, and I'm sure that's how most people feel. So, can anybody really answer my first question with confidence?

In any event, I'm relieved by this movie's numbers, because hopefully it's a sign Dimension will finally hang up this franchise for good. Perhaps the era of trying to resurrect old series has finally come and gone, and movies like Scary Movie V and A Good Day to Die Hard are the evidence. Audiences have grown up and moved on, and it's high time movie studios follow suit.

Bruce Hall: Hold on, don't you guys think you're being a little harsh? I for one find it incredibly refreshing that someone finally had the courage to make fun of Charlie Sheen. Or Lindsay Lohan. Or Black Swan and Inception, two films that have totally gotten a free ride since they came out almost three years ago. And logistically I can't wrap my head around how they managed to fit in more than a symbolic shot at Evil Dead, which was released after this one had already finished filming. Scary Movie 5 is obviously going to make its money back but it's as though someone was consciously striving for the bare minimum. A film this cynical hardly deserves to be mentioned, let alone rewarded with profit.

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