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Matthew Huntley: I knew the original Pitch Perfect was a solid hit, but I was admittedly ignorant of just how popular it was (and how popular it became after it left theaters on the home market). Hence why I am kind of blown away by Pitch Perfect 2's performance over the weekend, although I had a sneaking suspicion it was going to open big based on its early international figures (I just didn't expect it to be this big). How do you explain this? Well, I think Jason and Edwin hit the nails on the head, but I would also argue that Avengers being in its third weekend helped the situation, meaning because that movie already had two weeks to itself with a different audience, it was time for Pitch Perfect 2 to roll in and become an event in and of itself, only with females dominating the crowd instead of males. In other words, there was additional build-up to Pitch Perfect 2 being a priority, and with Avengers playing less of a role in diluting the audience, the opening was able to be that much bigger. This is very impressive indeed.

Felix Quinonez: I'm really blown away by this opening. I had no idea people liked the first one so much. I really thought Pitch Perfect was a lucky accident and that it was a movie that people sort of enjoyed and forgot about. Because of this, I thought the excitement for it would have passed and this movie would have a decent opening and closed as a small hit. Obviously I was way off target. So I don't really know how they did it. But I clearly underestimated the amount of goodwill the first movie had.

Kim Hollis: As Edwin mentioned, this film really gained an audience after it was released on DVD and home video, and it offers something different and fun for young women, especially high school and college-age females, to enjoy. The audience was 72% female and 57% was under the age of 25. It’s a defining film for a generation of girls (and one they don’t have to feel embarrassed about, like, say, High School Musical).

Michael Lynderey: Congratulations to both Pitch Perfect and Mad Max for each out-grossing the totals of the last entries in their respective franchises in a single weekend ($69 million to $65 million, and $44 million to $36 million). It was a bit more unlikely for Pitch Perfect, I suppose, but Edwin's Austin Powers comparison is right on the money. That was a film that went from a $53 million total for the first installment to a $54 million OPENING for the sequel, just two years later. Personally, I was surprised at how big Pitch Perfect was even in theaters, but I didn't realize that its fan base had grown to such a significant degree that the sequel would easily take the record for the highest opening ever for a musical. It wasn't close (the second highest? High School Musical 3, with $42 million). I think the studio should strike while the iron is hot and make another film, maybe for the holiday season 2016. This brand is definitely extremely popular among its target demographic right now.

Kim Hollis: Hot Pursuit debuted last weekend with $13.9 million and has a running domestic total of $23.4 million. What do you think about the results so far for this Reese Witherspoon/Sofia Vergara comedy?

Edwin Davies: This is pretty dire, and is something of a step back for Witherspoon as an actress since she managed to impress, both critically and commercially, with Wild last year. It's also a knock on her current track record as a producer, since she previously produced both Wild and Gone Girl. The trailers for this weren't great and the reviews were awful, and I think that at this point, following the failures of How Do You Know and This Means War, Witherspoon's name isn't so heavily associated with comedy that people would rush out to see her in anything just because she was in it. They need a compelling reason, and Hot Pursuit didn't provide one.

Michael Lynderey: Just like Mad Max (ironically), the numbers on Hot Pursuit were basically going to follow the reviews. Mad Max had a best case scenario and this one was given the exact opposite reaction. It's interesting that Hot Pursuit will probably come in under Witherspoon's Oscar movie Wild (which finished with $37 million), showing that quality still matters to some degree. And finally, it's too bad that Sofia Vergara can't seem to break out as a movie star. Both she and Witherspoon clearly deserved a better script, and Hot Pursuit could have easily been good counter-programming against Avengers and the rest. Instead, it'll just be remembered as a generic buddy movie.

Kim Hollis: I’d call it disappointing, but I’m surprised Hot Pursuit has been able to do even as well as it has. The commercials were extremely lackluster, and audiences have no recent reason to believe that Reese Witherspoon is a good comedic actress (in terms of movie-goer memory, Legally Blonde and Election were a long, long, long time ago). It looks like a blatant attempt to capture a similar audience to The Heat, and people seem to be able to sense that sort of desperation.

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