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Kim Hollis: Free Birds, the animated Thanksgiving film about turkeys, opened to $15.8 million. What do you think of this result?

Jason Barney: Free Birds is dangerously close to being a flop, as a $16 million opening against a $55 million budget, probably much more, is math that likely is not going to add up. At this point in time I would have to say that Free Birds would have to have a performance like Puss In Boots, which is highly unlikely, in order for it to be successful. Kids and family movies at this time of year are not a bad idea, but the support for this one just was not there.

Matthew Huntley: I agree with Jason, especially considering Birds' only real competition was Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, which is currently in its sixth weekend. Granted, $55 million is relatively inexpensive for a computer animated family movie, but given the movie's timely subject matter, it should have done better. It just goes to show how big a role the words "Disney," "Pixar" and "Dreamworks" probably play on family audiences' decision to go see a movie. That's actually a sad thing.

Felix Quinonez: I agree that it's hard to call this anything other than a disappointing. It's only competition has already pretty much run its course and it’s a Thanksgiving based movie in November. It should have done better. But to be honest, I don't think its performance is surprising. It always seemed to me like it was an also-ran and I was never expecting it to break out.

Bruce Hall: Here's proof that having the market all to yourself does not a winner make. Was it the bland, generic title? Was it the unappealing premise? Was it released too early? Does anyone really care that Owen Wilson and Amy Poehler are your voice talent? Yes, yes, yes, and no. Word-of-mouth on this film is abysmal, and that kind of thing will kill a family title in short order. Free Birds never had a chance, and this is probably the last sentence I'll ever write about it.

Edwin Davies: This seems pretty disastrous, to me. Sure, the film didn't cost all that much and it'll probably get close to earning its budget back in the States, but it'll be dead on arrival pretty much anywhere else in the world since Thanksgiving is an American holiday, and that makes the film irrelevant before it even gets started. When you lose the central gimmick of it being Thanksgiving related, you end up with a terrible looking, and generally terrible, animated film from a company with none of the brand recognition of Disney, Pixar or DreamWorks. Free Birds HAD to be a success Stateside in a way few films do nowadays, and this result spells doom as far as I'm concerned.

Tim Briody: Does every holiday need its own movie now? What's next, Arbor Day, with some anthropomorphic trees? Wait, hang on, let me write this down...

Kim Hollis: I actually thought Free Birds looked pretty decent design-wise (I saw about 17 jillion trailers for it over the summer). Ultimately, though, if you’re not DreamWorks or Pixar, taking a chance on something weird like turkeys as your main character is probably not going to pay off. I don’t think it’s a massive disaster given the $55 million budget, and I can’t imagine Relativity was actually expecting huge things from it, either.

On a semi-related note, I was just thinking about the conversations that might result from a family seeing this movie – I’m imagining kids refusing to eat turkey at the Thanksgiving table. Mass chaos!

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