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Bruce Hall: Looking back on Scorsese's career, the two biggest opening weekends are Shutter Island ($41 million), which opened in February 2010, and The Departed ($26 million), which won an early October weekend against light competition back in 2006. These are also the two most financially successful films of his career, topping out at $133 million and $128 million domestically.

Aside from that, The Wolf of Wall Street actually represents the third biggest opening weekend of Scorsese's storied career (not adjusted for inflation). Aside from those two films, nothing else the man has done - from Raging Bull to Goodfellas - has opened as well as The Wolf of Wall Street.

So what does this tell us? Nothing really, other than A) expectations for The Wolf of Wall Street may have been unrealistically high, and B) opening weekend doesn't necessarily tell the whole story, because every film has its own story. And in this case, I believe the story has an upside.

Out of nearly 30 feature films directed, Scorsese has seen 13 of them break $30 million at the box office, nine over $50 million and three over $100 million. And that third hit is The Aviator, which opened to an inauspicious $858,000 in December 2004 before going on to earn about $102 million domestically.

Wow. I actually didn't even know that until I looked it up. Scorsese makes high quality, stylistically distinctive, thought provoking material that relies a lot on word-of-mouth for long term success. The man's work is a slow burn, and the very light 27% in receipts The Wolf experienced from first to second frame suggests we may be seeing the same thing at work here. Time will tell, but time seems to be what it takes for most of Scorsese's work to find its audience. And when it does, I suspect that The Wolf of Wall Street stands a fair chance of being that fourth $100 million earner.

And by the way, you know who the star of those Big Three earners was?

Leonardo DiCaprio.

Max Braden: I think that's strong and reflects an uncommon type of Scorsese movie. With many of Scorsese's films, part or a lot of the draw is the feeling that you're going to get an authentic view behind the curtain of worlds you're not normally allowed to access. In some cases it's a glimpse, and in other cases there's a strong tale to the movie. So in Goodfellas, Casino, Gangs of New York, and The Departed, you're going into the movie wondering how the main character is going to get out of his obviously spiraling lifestyle alive. I don't get that sense about The Wolf of Wall Street from the trailers (I haven't seen the movie yet). It looks more like the point is to get a taste of 1980s excess, like The Aviator or a modern Great Gatsby. I assume DiCaprio's character is doomed, but I don't really care; the draw for me is the hubris on display. He looks like Gordon Gekko turned up to 11. In that sense this movie plays more like a comedy than a drama. Yet everyone knows this is still a Scorsese drama, so I wouldn't expect it to make noisy comedy money. I see this movie just chugging away at the box office and continuing to make money. It wouldn't surprise me if The Wolf of Wall Street turns out to be one of Scorsese's highest grossing movies on the lower end of the opening weekend figure list.

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