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Tim Briody: All the goodwill built up from The Hangover was used up and then some by Part II. Deemed by audiences to have no redeeming qualities whatsoever, it caused those who loved The Hangover and hated Hangover Part II to decide not to bother with Part III even though by all accounts it's better than Part II (though that's a pretty low bar). After the first two days of box office, I wondered if Part III would even match the first five days of Part II at $135 million. That total is still in play. As myself and David and others have stated before, the quality of the previous film buys the ticket to the next one. This is the opposite of that statement in reverse.

Brett Ballard-Beach: I find this very analogous to both Back to the Future II/III and Matrix Reloaded/Revolutions, just without the being shot back to back and released less than a year apart. The second film disappointed many people (for many different reasons) and used up all the good will and then some from a very beloved and unexpected critical/commercial hit first film. That the third film was also divisive (perhaps more liked than the second, perhaps not) only compounds the end result. Throwing in at 53% under the gross of your prior film is not good. And there is no way it can be spun as such, especially if the overseas gross performs in a similar manner.

Max Braden: The title is self explanatory - audiences see the experience as a headache and a reminder of something they'd rather forget and swear they'd never do again!

Shalimar Sahota: A successful film suddenly becomes a franchise and tries to push the same concept to audiences within a space of four years. Just how many times can the same guys suffer a hangover? I guess the damage caused by the second film (a sequel that was put on the fast track) meant that people had simply had enough. So by the time a third one came around, many were probably thinking, "Really?"

David Mumpower: I disagree with Jay in one fundamental way. I believe that The Hangover II is heinous. I am not simply speaking of its quality, either. Everything about that movie is indicative of the cynical nature of Hollywood, the element that those of us who believe in the purity of content creation happen to despise. There are absolutely no new ideas in The Hangover II. It is a duplication of a movie that people liked once before, an exploitative attempt to garner the same ticket sales by delivering the same product. And there is a meanness to the sequel that did not exist in the first film. The key aspect of The Hangover is that Bradley Cooper's character is all talk. In reality, he's a happily married family man who postures to cling to a part of his youth. That aspect vanished in the sequel, wherein every primary character was a total douche. The funny was discarded in favor of the obnoxious, turning The Hangover into the cool kid's table and the The Hangover II into the out of control (in a bad way) frat party that leads to criminal prosecution.

I believe that audiences recognized the difference between being cool and posturing as cool. As Tim notes, we always argue (despite the recent exception with Star Trek Into Darkness) that the quality of the previous film directly impacts the opening weekend of the successor. In the case of The Hangover III, it followed a movie that is looking up at Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows in terms of quality. Creating another Hangover movie only two years later when there were no new ideas in the 2011 release was always a miscalculation. Consumers spoke with their wallets and slapped down an unwelcome title. If anything, we should be marveling over the fact that Warner Bros. still worked this con to the tune of $88.5 million in 11 days. That's still too damn much money for such a calculated, cold movie concept that also happens to be terrible as demonstrated the RottenTomatoes scores of 20%, one even lower than The Hangover II.

Kim Hollis: I'm with David. The Hangover II was a vile, unpleasant movie that brings absolutely nothing original to the table and instead just dials up the more annoying elements of the original film. I enjoyed The Hangover well enough but I guess I didn't need to see that story revisited again... and again. Anyway, audiences could sense that Part III felt very much like an extension/continuation of Part II, and there was really no reason to see it.

I hope that this truly is the finale. Admittedly, I'll never see this movie (the combination of the giraffe plot element and the presence of Ken Jeong ensure that), but I don't think I'm alone in my thinking here. Frankly, it's made more than it deserves.

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