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Jason Barney: Put simply, The Rock and San Andreas are the definition of a summer popcorn film, and I was thrilled to see this did better than expectations. Going into the weekend there were several predictions it would not break $30-35 million, so scoring above $50 million is a huge win.

The budget numbers are starting to look really nice at this point. An opening this large ensures it is going to do just fine domestically, and The Rock's overseas appeal is growing. Even if the film sees a decline in the 55% range next weekend, it will be approaching the cost of production. It will have some work to do, but in the end this will be a good investment.

David Mumpower: What I find most interesting about the debut is that The Rock was already the biggest box office performer in the world according to Forbes. Since then, he's starred in Furious 7 and now this. With the recent announcement that he'll portray Jack Burton in a Big Trouble in Little China update, it's clear that he's phenomenal at choosing projects that fit The Rock brand. Macho films that aren't supposed to be taken seriously are his wheelhouse, and he keeps finding new ones. He shouldn't get a lot of the credit for Furious 7, but San Andreas is basically ALL him. There was another disaster porn flick released just last year, Into the Storm, and the entire universe not only ignored it but has already forgotten it. They'll watch a movie that looks no better if Dwayne Johnson stars in it. That's kindest statement someone can make about an A-list actor.

Kim Hollis: Aloha, Cameron Crowe's latest film, debuted with $9.7 million this weekend. What do you think of this result?

Edwin Davies: This is in line with the openings for Crowe's last two narrative features, Elizabethtown and We Bought a Zoo, which suggests on first glance that he's maintaining a certain level of consistency. However, Elizabethtown came out 10 years ago, and We Bought a Zoo came out at Christmas time, so it had a somewhat deflated opening (reflected in the fact that it wound up grossing $75.6 million, a number that Aloha is unlikely to make half of). As such, it seems likely that Aloha is going to struggle to make its presence felt over the next few weeks, and will probably not even make it to $30 million.

As to why it is probably DOA, that's a combination of a bad marketing and (by most accounts) a bad film. The trailers for Aloha were woeful, failing to get across what the film was about other than a lot of famous people hanging out in Hawaii. While that has a certain appeal, they also didn't contain any particularly good jokes or compelling story beats, which suggests that most of its opening came from people who were just looking for something that didn't have explosions. That might benefit it over the next few weeks if it manages to stake a claim as counter programming, but the extremely negative critical response will probably keep people away since this is exactly the sort of film that needs decent reviews to get people to pay attention to it.

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