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Jason Barney: I'm not much into the source material, but at least within the realm of the budgets and numbers, this isn't a bad opening. How many movies wish they could be cutting into marketing costs before the end of the first weekend? Paper Towns was put together for $12 million. By the end of Sunday it collected more than that, so from that perspective it is going to be a success.

That said, this is the summer movie season and it is not going to hang around very long. It opened in sixth place and barely earned more money than two films that have been out for over a month and a half. There are two new wide openers next weekend. Opening so low in the top 10, and considering the competition, Paper Towns could be out of the top 10 by August 1st, which would be a pretty awful box office run.

Michael Lynderey: They're finalizing casting for another Green book, Looking for Alaska, right now, and I imagine that will be out next summer. I was really uncertain what to expect from Paper Towns. In my mind, it could have even opened well above $30 million, just on the Green name alone (and that's a number it's not likely to get to at all at this point). Now it's pretty clear that not just anything from this writer's pen is going to light up the box office charts the way The Fault in Our Stars did. But that's okay. If you look at Paper Towns' numbers with the Stars film right out of your mind, they're not bad at all: Paper Towns ends up as a relatively low-budget teen film with decent reviews and an okay opening. If the studio is happy with that - and they certainly could be - I don't see why they wouldn't proceed with the next book, Looking for Alaska. Depending on reviews and the choice of weekend, it could do even better.

Ryan Kyle: I'm sure Fox is pretty sad that they didn't stumble onto the next Nicholas Sparks-brand since it looks like The Fault In Our Stars was the bigger name draw and not John Green. The fact that Paper Towns opening weekend is less than half of the opening day of TFIOS has got to sting given that the marketing campaign heavily referenced that film and even recast one of the main actors (Nat Wolff). However, in terms of budget, this film is a win, matching the $12 million production costs. Like the Blumhouse model, if they can keep the films cheap enough, then why not keep churning them out? However, expectations will be tempered next time. Also, Shailene Woodley is a much bigger draw than I thought now in hindsight.

Kim Hollis: I think this is fine. The Fault in Our Stars was always a much more significant book to its audience, whereas Paper Towns really only gained steam with that group after TFIOS became a theatrical hit. I think it’s also fair to say that the kid who was a decidedly supporting character in TFIOS isn’t enough of a draw on his own to pull that audience in. Cara Delevingne isn’t really a thing yet, either. I do think that TFIOS was given some boosted credibility by having Shailene Woodley as its lead, and Paper Towns simply didn’t have that. John Green did an admirable job promoting it, but let’s be honest. If you’re not a writer named JK Rowling or Stephen King, your marketing clout only goes so far.

Also, I do think of all the openers, this one might have been affected by Thursday night’s tragedy. As was mentioned during our discussion of whether it impacted box office, parents might be reticent to send their teenager to the theater after what happened – particularly with today’s overprotective helicopter parent society. I would say it probably wasn’t a huge impact, but even a small percentage of people staying away adds up when the debut is smaller in scale.

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