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Jason Barney: It is not going to be a failure, but I think everyone involved had to be hoping for larger numbers. This was supposed to be one of "the" films going into Halloween, but this opening isn't exactly strong. Carrie is not going to be a bad investment, but I sense there was money left on the table. In the bigger picture, I wonder if this was supposed to be a bit of a tease for any studio that is thinking about picking up Stephen King's Dark Tower series. If Carrie had been wildly successful, people would have said King's name and stories deserve more time on the big screen. In the end the film will do fine, but I think it is a bit below expectations.

Tim Briody: I actually wonder how much of the audience this was aimed at knew this was even a remake, though I guess you could counter that by saying most horror releases are remakes these days. This landed right in the wheelhouse for mid-tier horror, we weren't going to have any sort of Conjuring or Insidious breakout here.

Kim Hollis: While it feels like Carrie fell below expectations, I can't help but think that there wasn't really that much to it that was super appealing to a wider audience. I think fans of the book/original film might have been intrigued if it appeared to offer *anything* different at all, but it seems to be a pretty by-the-book remake of the original film itself. Even if a younger generation wasn't aware of the story from the 1976 film, the trailer gave everything away, so the shock value of the bloodbath at the prom wasn't even something that people could buzz about. I feel like this is a missed opportunity, but honestly I'm a lot more interested in new horror ideas than recycled stuff anyway.

David Mumpower: My overriding thought with Carrie is that the marketplace is so saturated with horror movies. The specialness of October releases is negated by the ubiquity of the product. In addition, the target audience for horror movies has always been the 14-24 year old demo. The people in that age group can watch hundreds of better genre titles on their phones, tablets and computers. So there is an onus on Carrie to differentiate why it is worth the effort. I believe that is a key factor in why it was ordinary performer rather than a breakout hit.

Kim Hollis: Escape Plan, the action flick that teams up senior citizens Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, opened with $9.9 million. What do you think of this result?

Matthew Huntley: Clearly, people didn't see The Expendables and The Expendables 2 because of Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, or at least not these two alone. Otherwise, Escape Plan would have opened to at least, at least, double-digit numbers. It goes without saying this will be a huge loss to the production company and distributor (not sure if the two are one and the same, but it's being released by Summit on the domestic side), as the movie cost a hefty $70 million to make.

What's also obvious, and it was evident earlier this year with The Last Stand and Bullet to the Head, is these two action icons have completely lost their pull with movie-going audiences and should now be relegated to cameos, if that. It's sad, but times change. Had this movie come out 20 years ago, it would have opened to three times this amount, and that's in early '90s dollars. Now, though, people aren't asking for Stallone/Schwarzenegger flicks, and the numbers are indicative of that. I like these guys as action stars - and who knows, Escape Plan could be good [I've yet to see it] - but I think it's high time they retire so as not to suffer any more embarrassment.

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