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Kim Hollis: Is Ant-Man the silliest concept ever to open over $50 million? If not, what is - and why?

Ben Gruchow: It's not the silliest concept I've heard of...but then, if you'd pitched me *any* of the Marvel projects back in the day when a $50 million opening was a bigger milestone, I'd have thought them all improbable.

What's the silliest concept I can think of that opened over $50 million, on the basis of pitch? Honestly, Ted. “A boy wishes for his teddy bear to come to life, and it does so as a profane, sex-obsessed, misogynistic stuffed animal. It'll star the guy from The Happening and Max Payne and the voice of Peter Griffin.” Silly, not incredibly original, cynical. The movie itself was more than the sum of its parts.

What's the silliest concept I can think of that opened over $50 million, based on how ridiculous the finished product looked? Van Helsing. I have trouble understanding how that one could've gotten to a $50 million total. I was a far less demanding moviegoer in 2004, and even I got the Forest Whitaker eye when I looked at those special effects and that dialogue.

Edwin Davies: Jackass 3D is the one that immediately springs to mind. The idea that people would be clamoring to see the third cinematic version of a very silly and gross TV show that at the time had been off the air for eight years remains kind of crazy to me.

Max Braden: To start with, my brain has trouble seeing the silliness that other people are seeing (I'm not judging, I just don't see it), so I'm going to have trouble coming up with a comparison. Comic book characters have always been silly or unrealistic. A guy gets bitten by a spider and can all of a sudden swing from buildings on his own...stuff? Batman is just a vigilante in a weird Halloween costume. Maybe the ant isn't as noble as something like Lion Man (does he exist?) but at least we're not talking about Aquaman. Plus there's a precedent for shrink movies that owe inspiration to the likes of Jules Verne: Isaac Asimov was approached to write the screenplay for 1966's Fantastic Voyage. 1957's The Incredible Shrinking Man won a Hugo Award and is listed in the U.S.'s National Film Registry. Honey, I Shrunk the Kids earned total box office equivalent to $265 million today. And I still enjoy Innerspace. I don't know how to judge silly. How about talking or singing animals, like Finding Nemo or Shrek? How about crossdressing shenanigans, like Tootsie or Mrs. Doubtfire? The Waterboy opened to $40 million in 1998 and I don't know how to answer that, except that Crocodile Dundee grossed as much as The Waterboy did over a decade earlier. It's Ted. The answer is Ted.

Jason Barney: I think the question ignores years of box office history.

How many films have opened over $50 million dollars? From wizards to talking trolls to vampires to time traveling machines?

Is Ant-Man the most unlikely superhero to gain this sort of traction? Probably. I was an avid reader of comics and I can't even tell you who Ant-Man was. Is he the silliest? No.

Ryan Kyle: In the context of the opening, I wouldn't call this "silly" since the hype around anything Marvel pointed to this opening for months now.

If I had to single out one film, I'd point my finger at Paranormal Activity 3 for suckering in nearly $52.5 million in one weekend for people to watch "found footage.”

Michael Lynderey: Well, Fifty Shades of Grey opened well over that. And what of Twilight (all five times), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and The LEGO Movie? I'm not so sure that Ant-Man is all that ridiculous to begin with, since it plays into the old Honey, I Shrunk the Kids-The Incredible Shrinking Man/Woman tropes (in fact, they should have played that up in the marketing, as well as in the movie itself, which spends most of its running time disappointingly human-sized). And PS, I liked Van Helsing. How can anyone not?

David Mumpower: I'm firmly ensconced in the camp that Ant-Man is the most ridiculous concept ever to open over $50 million, Max's solid point notwithstanding. When I look at other contenders, here are a few that stand out. The Village is a good one now that everyone knows the conceit, but it was sold as a mystery at the time. Green Lantern is a rival comic premise, because I fail to see how jewelry will stop the forces of evil. And 8 Mile is basically ridiculous as a concept, even though it works as a film. Ant-Man is exponentially stupider than all of them in combination, though. A dude has the "power" of ants. His mortal enemy should be Magnifying Lens Man.

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