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David Mumpower: In a different forum, Reagen Sulewski described this situation as a black swan event. I think that's the perfect depiction. I was joking with my wife on Sunday that I had been bullish on the film two weeks ago, saying that people were really sleeping on its potential. My expectation for its opening weekend at that point was $40 million. Yeah, so...

When we covered The Passion of the Christ, this site was a lot more optimistic about its upside than most, and I felt like that scenario was one that could have been anticipated by the open-minded. I do not feel the same way about American Sniper. By the close of business on Friday, it had already exceeded even the loftiest of tracking projections. That's...well, it's a call to action to change the methodology for tracking. This is the box office realm's equivalent to Eric Cantor's polling data being off by 40 points.

America has had Clint Eastwood in timeout for several films now. Out of nowhere, he releases a movie that makes Gran Torino look like Letters from Iwo Jima. With $92.7 million in three days, Bradley Cooper's latest film almost surpassed the one where he played a raccoon, Guardians of the Galaxy, which opened only $1.6 million higher. In fact, if we consider four-day openings, American Sniper is at $107 million while the Marvel action flick is at $106 million. There is no rhyme or reason to how this is possible. It is simply something strange that exists, like Donald Trump's hair.

Kim Hollis: I'd agree that a variety of influences contributed to this massive debut, even if it's also true that when you combine all those factors, it still shouldn't add up to an opening like this. I'd first credit the stellar trailer, which does a masterful job of building tension and almost certainly created a lot of interest amongst the same sort of audience that propelled Lone Survivor to a solid opening last year.

I'd say that the Academy Awards nominations created interest as well, plus there was a sort of grass roots interest reminiscent of the aforementioned Passion of the Christ amongst the Red State set. It had the odd benefit of appealing both to that demographic and to moviegoers who prioritize seeing all of the Oscar Best Picture nominees.

I think that it's fair to call this a game-changer. I have no idea how another studio would emulate the result, but I think analysts and bean-counters will be micro-examining every aspect of American Sniper's release strategy to see what can be gleaned for future use.

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