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Michael Lynderey: I think it's clear Adam Sandler's drawing power has dimmed significantly since roughly early 2011. I still wasn't sure, but Pixels confirms it almost without question. Back in the day, a generic Adam Sandler comedy, even one with bad reviews (which they mostly all got) would still be a guarantee of over $100 million at the box office. That consistency was remarkable for a decade or so - right up there with Denzel Washington's openings, though at a higher level. Just Go With It, which was somewhat underrated, managed to etch out $100 million, but just about everything since then (Jack & Jill, That's My Boy [which to my mind is one of his best films], Blended, and now Pixels) has come in with totals unheard of for a Sandler comedy since the days of Little Nicky (I'm not counting Spanglish here).

Yes, Grown Ups 2 did very well and also crossed $100 million, but that's a sequel, with an all-star cast, and the Hotel Transylvania brand is pretty strong, although that's animation, and I'm not so sure Hotel Transylvania 2 will make $100 million this fall. But other than that, Sandler just can't seem to carry a film over $100 million anymore.

Indeed, his list of upcoming credits is troubling - other than Transylvania 2, it's just two Netflix films. Nothing in terms of live-action and big-screen. We could very well be seeing the future of Adam Sandler here: straight-to-Netflix films, which may be very successful on their own terms, and Hotel Transylvania sequels. Pixels really could be the last, or certainly one of the last, of its kind.

Ryan Kyle: This is a pretty epically disappointing result if you view it in terms of being a big-budget blockbuster featuring classic Nintendo characters with incredible marketing cache coming to life for essentially the first time on the big screen. If you view it in terms of being an Adam Sandler flick, it is a best-case scenario opening given his recent downward trend. This July looks more like August (or even September) in terms of tepid openings, so it's not as if competition was too fierce for Pixels.

Audiences have smartened up a bit (well, $24 million worth of people still need to learn) after Sandler's past few bombs and even Josh Gad (aka Olaf) and Peter Dinklage's presence couldn't help trick people into thinking this is a quality project. Overseas results should be stronger than usual for Sandler given that this is more of an action flick than a "comedy" so this film can churn some kind of coin. However, I think the biggest career ding from this flop will be to director Chris Columbus, who has gone from Harry Potter and Mrs. Doubtfire to I Love You, Beth Cooper and this.

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