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Ryan Kyle: I chalk this opening up to a weak film hurt by an even weaker marketing effort. The poster ads for this film made it look like a kids movie with the block letters while the trailers focused on R-rated action. The strange decision to hide Hugh Jackman being in the film also didn't do any favors. Nothing about the campaign made Chappie seem urgent enough to see in theaters, let alone pay extra to see it in IMAX. For costing only $49 millin, this opening isn't disastrous as it fell on the low end of estimates, but it should make Fox slightly nervous in handing the Alien franchise keys to Neill Blomkamp's diminishing brand that burned bright just a few short years ago.

Edwin Davies: The confused marketing was a key problem. As Ryan said, there was a degree of dissonance between the poster and the trailers, but there was also a murky quality within the trailers themselves. At times it looked like a goofy comedy, but at other times, and especially as we got closer to the release date, the focus shifted to making it look like a very serious action movie. Audiences didn't really know what the film was about apart from it featuring a robot named Chappie.

On top of that, Blomkamp seems to have directed himself into a corner after just three films. All three of his features have a similar look and feel to them, but only District 9 seemed to really connect with audiences and critics, while Elysium seemed to use up most of the goodwill left over from that one. Maybe there is a general feeling of "fool me once, shame on you..." surrounding his work, especially when it's visually indistinguishable from his previous films.

Kim Hollis: Before the weekend, my sister texted me to ask about the movie. She has a 11-year-old son, and I'm sure she thought it was a movie that she could take him to see. When I told her that the reviews are bad and that it's actually rated R, she was taken aback. I just don't understand the marketing of this movie at all. Honestly, I don't understand the point of this movie at all. Why make a film about a robot if you're not targeting it to kids? Yes, I'm being narrow-minded, but I blame the studio here. If Blomkamp wants to make this movie, it's a limited release as he pitches it. The audience was always going to be limited, and it doesn't help much that Elysium turned people off of him after the quality of District 9. If I'm the producers of his Alien project, I am very, very concerned right now.

David Mumpower: On the one hand, it's nice to see Johnny Five updated for modern audiences. On the other hand, it's really damned strange to make a hard R-rated film about a cutesy robot. It's like Short Circuit 3: Time of the Killbots. I was actually all-in on this film after watching the first trailer. Then, every single ad since then has moved me (far, far) away from that viewpoint. This has been one of the worst marketing campaigns in recent memory, and I don't even blame anybody for it. There is such a thing as too weird. This is what a release like Birdman looks like most of the time, which is makes its Best Picture win is all the more impressive. As I told John Hamann last weekend, Blomkamp needs the Alien franchise so much more than the Alien franchise needs him. This is the first time since District 9 that I'm glad he didn't get the Halo movie.

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