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Kim Hollis: This debut was pretty close to being in line with my expectations, not so much because it was an adaptation of a popular book series as has been mentioned here, but once again because it's a project that specifically targets women. There are so few offerings that truly excite that demographic. When one does come along, they support it in droves. This audience was 68% female (presumably the remaining 32% was mostly dudes on Valentine's dates) and 25+. It's weird to imagine that a movie like this would be the activity for a girls' night out, but that is exactly what seems to have happened. I have no idea how the studio maintains this kind of momentum for additional films in the series (particularly with the dismal word-of-mouth), but kudos to them for generating this kind of bank.

David Mumpower: Tim Briody was forced to pinch-hit on the box office forecast at the last minute on Thursday when Reagen got sick. When he asked me whether his estimate was too optimistic, I told him that he had basically forecasted the same amount as I felt the film would do. After Friday, he both wondered if we had been too optimistic, but we appreciated that those Fandango pre-sales were still clearly not being accounted for yet. By close of business Saturday, it was readily apparent that 50 Shades was, if anything, underestimated. I think that says everything about the perfect timing of this release.

On previous Valentine's Day weekends, we've seen garbage romances overachieve. This past weekend felt like a more honest variation of that behavior. Everyone dropped the pretext and went all-in on sex rather than romance. The end result is that a hard R bondage film released in February has just outperformed The Passion of the Christ. I won't crib Edwin's joke above, but it's pretty funny that these two films will be linked indefinitely at the top of the February opening weekend charts. Imagine the Venn Diagram on that intersecting audience.

Otherwise, I feel the same about 50 Shades as I do of the work that inspired its original fan fiction. I could care less about Twilight or this, but I still admire the box office performances of each one. They are both unequivocal blockbusters despite having limited appeal to men. That's another win for the Hollywood bean counters who are employing big data to discover untapped niches (don't make it dirty, people).

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