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Brett Ballard-Beach: Perhaps I am more easily impressed these days - or was simply more skeptical about its prospects - but I think this result is spectacular. Having never had any kind of vested interest in the first film (I saw the last 15 minutes at a second run back in 2006 while arriving early for the Willis-Berry potboiler Perfect Stranger. That 15 was more than enough), I am of the mind that any sequel was going to underperform, not simply one coming nearly a decade after the fact, and with nothing new to offer story or visual-wise, save for a marauding vengeful Eva Green... which might actually be enough to get me to see this. Could a sequel back in '09 or '10 have come within spitting distance of the original? Perhaps, it's all speculation. To at least open stronger than all of the imitators in the last seven years, to have strong 3D and IMAX ticket sales, and to blow the pants off the openings and final grosses of most of the action genre in general of the last several years are all tremendous achievements. When worldwide final grosses are tallied up, I think it will be firmly in the success column.

Kim Hollis: I think that lowered expectations had to come into play here. Yes, 300 was a hit, but this sequel had a tough hill to climb. Having come out so long after the original, particularly with all the recent imitators that have more or less been terrible, was enough of a struggle on its own. And it's also true that the hyper-stylized action that the first film is known for is now an old trick (much like what happened with bullet time and The Matrix). Gerard Butler is neither a huge name nor a proven draw, but it's still tough to sell a sequel when the main character in the original film is dead. Given all these challenges, I think 300: Rise of an Empire had exemplary box office.

David Mumpower: I rarely disagree a great deal with John Hamann, but I felt his Weekend Wrap-Up was far too harsh an evaluation of a 300 sequel. As everyone here has mentioned, the seven year gap between the two films is a brutal void. The under-25 crowd that caused the movie to become a shocking blockbuster is now parenting the next generation of future film lovers. People who were 10 when the last movie came out are only able to see R-rated movies for the first time this year. That is an entire generation of film for the purposes of box office evaluation. Tethering any expectations for a 300 sequel to the performance of its predecessor is brutally unfair in my estimation. What we are discussing instead is a star-less action film that is no different on paper than, say, Immortals save for the brand value. I view this opening weekend and its strong international showing as a tremendous win for all involved. A lot of people in the industry were telling me they would not be surprised if 300-er bombed. Instead, we are talking about another blockbuster.

Max Braden: For a sequel to a movie that I think most agree did far better than its genre typically does, and now lacking its A-list star, I think anything over $30 million is an excellent result. I realize that the high testosterone trash talk was the real seller of the first movie, but without Gerard Butler, 300 2 isn't a lot different than Pompeii or the Legend of Hercules, both of which opened to a fraction of this weekend's result.

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