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Brett Ballard-Beach: Looking at Justin Zackham's meager filmography (and his writing credit for The Bucket List), I honestly don't know what convinced all these actors - including four Academy Award winners - to sign on. One wag noted that it kinda seemed like License to Wed... only worse. Maybe the elder cast members wanted a chance to get raunchy and the younger ones wanted to work with the elders. For consideration's sake, ponder that this is going to make less than half of what the Patrick Dempsey May 2008 film Made of Honor did, a film that opened opposite the first Iron Man. The Big Wedding won't even have that bit of "what was the counterprogramming" trivia to keep its memory alive.

Max Braden: Just look at the title, it's like they overreached and underreached at the same time. This isn't just any wedding movie, it's a BIG wedding. But it's not a Big Fat GREEK wedding... But you know what would have helped this movie triple its money? "Tyler Perry's Big Wedding." Otherwise if you're going to sell a wedding movie, apparently you're going to have to get raunchy like Bridesmaids. I saw no advertising for this. Looking at it now, I don't have much interest in seeing it other than catching it eventually on DVD.

Edwin Davies: I only saw one trailer for this film, but that trailer was pretty telling about why this didn't do well. It honestly looked like it had been assembled from clips of other bad rom-coms to save money. When Robin Williams appeared as a priest I found myself thinking, "Didn't this movie come out six years ago?" and the rest of the movie looked painfully generic. There was not one thing in it which hadn't been seen in a dozen other similar family/wedding/relationship comedies, and I can't imagine many people getting all that enthusiastic for it even before the reviews and word-of-mouth started saying how toxic it is.

David Mumpower: My first thought when this project was announced was how to differentiate it from Our Family Wedding, which was a Fox Searchlight release that earned only $7.6 million on opening weekend. The America Ferrera film wound up with about $20 million. I guess my answer is that The Big Wedding did not distinguish itself in any identifiable manner, grossing the same opening weekend total. Some of these titles feel like they are done only for the syndication money on female-skewing cable channels such as Lifetime and Oxygen. Nobody is ever going to go, "Can we please please please go see The Big Wedding on opening night?" And the world is a better place for that.

Kim Hollis: I believe I said this same thing the last time a poorly-received, crappy-looking rom-com underperformed, and I'll say it again. There was a time when you could throw out any old garbage, put some big stars in it, and market it to women, and they'd turn out in decent numbers. That time is past. Movies like The Big Wedding feel so cynical and manipulative, and I suppose that is exactly what they are. People are sensing when that's the case.

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