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Kim Hollis: The Wolverine opened to $53.1 domestically, and an additional $86 million from international venues. What are your thoughts on this performance?

Jay Barney: I know some people will mark this as a decline of the character or franchise, but I am not so sure. Looking at the last three films, Wolverine is at the very least making money for 20th Century Fox in a fairly substantial way. The 2009 film was panned, but it still brought in a good profit. Its budget was $150 million, which it surpassed, and the international gross outpaced domestic receipts. X-Men: First Class doesn’t really count, but that made money when all was said and done.

So now we have another Wolverine entry, and every pundit in the world is pointing out it has opened lower than most other comic book flicks. People can make that comparison if they want, but this film was made for a slim $120 million. That is $30 or 40 million less than other entries in the franchise.

Sure, Wolverine didn’t make as much as Thor, Captain America, or the Amazing Spiderman in its opening weekend, but I don’t think that matters. This film has opened a little bit lower than tracking, but this is far from disaster territory. Wolverine will match its budget somewhere between weeks two and three. The international grosses will make this a clear winner.

Felix Quinonez: In a weird way, I almost feel like I can't be fair when talking about this movie's performance. I've been dying to see this movie for a long time and now I did see it and I loved it. It wasn't perfect but I'm very happy with it. However I guess that talk is for another place and I don't want to get into spoilers.

But I guess the reason why I find it hard to be objective is because I've let my fanboy excitement unfairly cloud my expectations for this movie. I just assumed the "general public" shared my enthusiasm. But that wasn't the case. Going into this weekend I was actually entertaining the idea that The Wolverine would reach $90 million and go on to become the highest X-Men movie domestically (and worldwide). I know that sounds a bit crazy, but I was pretty much foaming at the mouth as I watched those trailers over and over again. Even now that I've tried to temper my expectations, I can't get myself to call this anything but a disappointment. I know that its budget was scaled back from his last outing, I know that the last movie put a lot of people off the character, and I know it will ultimately make some money for Fox but I still can't give this a pass. X-Men: First Class was in the same position with audiences after the very disappointing X-Men: The Last Stand and it still put up very similar (slightly higher) numbers than The Wolverine, without 3D surcharges. And that movie was very well received so I think at least some of that goodwill should have carried over to The Wolverine.

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