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We're down on bended knee. Will you marry us?

Kim Hollis: The Proposal, Sandra Bullock's comeback film, became her biggest opening ever by almost doubling her previous best with a $33.6 million debut. Why did this film do so much better than her past releases?

Brandon Scott: This was the result of a perfect storm of Bullock back in a familiar role, the summer being ripe for a "female-centric" comedy to draw an audience that was the opposite of "The Hangover" (or at least to have women get men back for making them see Hangover), a growing name in affable co-star Reynolds, and strong marketing. This is paint-by-numbers by every indication, but audiences have always rooted for Sandy and something clicked here. It is the opposite of the slam, bang, smash that so many blockbusters of summer are, so it found a niche and rolled with it.
Josh Spiegel: I'd agree with everything in that perfect storm scenario, especially the strong marketing. I feel like I've been seeing ads for this film since December, which is an immense amount of ad space. Really, the only thing that surprises me is that $33.6 million is Bullock's best opening by a wide margin (also, the fact that the terrible "Premonition" was the previous record-holder was kind of shocking). She's one of those actresses, though, who's very solid in the romantic comedy genre and this looked like something right up her alley.

Reagen Sulewski: Something that struck me while researching for this film - it's been two+ years since she's been in theaters, five years since she's been in a comedy and seven since she's been in a romantic comedy. Usually that kind of out of sight, out of mind doesn't help an actor, as audiences are fickle and forget about you. Apparently, that's unless you're America's Sweetheart and the summer has largely been disappointing.

Tim Briody: I'm not sure which surprised me more, that this is Sandra Bullock's first #1 movie in ten years or that the last one was Forces of Nature. Oh and Reagen, I was going to reply with Two Weeks Notice? But then I checked and *that* was the 2002 release. I need to go lie down.

Reagen Sulewski: Right Tim, that's the one I meant. In some ways, it's kind of similar to the situation for Julia Roberts right before My Best Friend's Wedding. She was a movie star who hadn't appeared in a whole lot of movies recently.





Scott Lumley: I honestly think this is just another example of how freakin' weird this summer has been. The recent big releases have been more like black holes than tent poles. Harry Potter and Transformers 2 had better clean house or the studios are going to have to entirely rethink their business models.

(Pause)

Not that they shouldn't be doing that already....

Jason Lee: I have to admit, I was really surprised with this opening. In the trailer and commercials, I didn't see anything that looked remotely new or fresh - basically just a sitcom plot stretched out to movie length. I mean, it's one thing to score a nice romcom opening weekend, it's another thing entirely to double your biggest opening weekend to date with something that looks like a re-hash of better romcoms.

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