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How do we break it to you guys? Honestly, it's not you, it's us.

Kim Hollis: He's Just Not That Into You,the star-studded chick flick, earned $27.8 million from 3,175 venues. To what can we attribute its breakout success?

David Mumpower: There is a self-fulfilling prophecy aspect to this, but the early portion of the past two years has seen a couple of chick flicks, Bride Wars and 27 Dresses, do very well. He's Just Not That Into You has outperformed those two debuts ($21.5 million and $23.0 million, respectively) as it should have. While those two titles were relatively gimmicky attempts to sell women on the wedding fantasy with a skosh of bridezilla thrown in, this weekend's number one film is a more elaborate romantic comedy. It tells multiple stories at once, a genre convention best used recently by 2003's Love Actually, and it features a similarly deep and talented cast. I've thought all along that this would be one of the breakout films of the early portion of the year, and I'll be curious to compare its performance this weekend to that of Confessions of a Shopaholic over the Valentine's Day period.

Brandon Scott: I concur with David in large part. I'll be honest - there is no way I would be remotely interested in 95% of rom-coms or a title targeted at women. This one held some intrigue for me, and I figured I would let reviews tell the story. Well, reviews were poor, so I neatly stepped away from interest in seeing this. That being said, the cast is large and respected (reasonably so), and those chick flick cliches were amusing (okay, I only saw #9, but still). The trailer was terrible, though, so am I even answering the question? I think star-power, a best selling book, and hopeful cross-gender appeal meant it did well. Now, as David suggests, what happens with this versus Confessions will be interesting.





Max Braden: I underestimated the box office because of the reasons David mentioned. I thought the varying plotlines lacked a coherent story that would put off moviegoers. I couldn't tell if they were supposed to get together or not. Plus, I don't really remember seeing much of the big name stars: Affleck, Aniston, and Johannson. But the marketing was good and if Paul Blart is an indication, people are in the mood for comedy.

Scott Lumley: It looked moderately funny. it had some decent starpower. The reviews weren't terrible. Jennifer Aniston. Yeah, that sounds like about $27 million to me.

Sean Collier: It also seems that the Oscar bait features have lost steam a bit early. Slumdog is still plugging away, but that's really about it. In the absence of anything from awards season really pulling in the crowds, something had to pick up the slack.

Jason Lee: I think we underestimated how much this topic would resonate with women - the idea that men simply do not make it easy for the opposite sex to understand their intentions and true feelings is one that has been discussed ad nauseum over cartons of ice cream.

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