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Taylor Lautner was in a movie this weekend...but not the one about lycanthropes.

Kim Hollis: The Wolfman opened to $30.6 million. Given the troubled production, doesn't it feel like Universal should be happy with this result?

Josh Spiegel: Absolutely. Universal would be crazy not to be happy here. With or without a troubled production, February is a weird time of year to release horror movies; what's more, Valentine's weekend seems even stranger, even with the idea of couples going to be scared together. Also, as much as I think Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt, and Hugo Weaving are interesting and talented actors, they don't often set the box office afire. Finally, the reviews were all pretty negative (though not as negative as with Valentine's Day), so had I been a Universal executive, I'd have hoped in my wildest dreams for a $20 million opening weekend. All things considered, this is a great result.

Michael Lynderey: This may well have been the best-case scenario, and Universal should definitely be satisfied. But I can't help and think that Wolfman was originally intended to be a strong $100 million+ tentpole picture - everything about the film, including the budget, director, and some of the early release dates, indicates that it was made to compete on a whole different level than the one it's ended up on. That said, I don't know why the studio kept on delaying poor Wolfie so much - it's a decent enough film, and it's got some very well-made action scenes. Seems unnecessary to brand it with the red flag of constant date changes.





Tim Briody: This is astounding. We've stated many times before that there is never a finite amount of box office dollars available on any given weekend, but the top three films just made $113 million. Add in Avatar and the top four took in $135 million. If you saw that coming, raise your hand. I didn't think so. Yes, Universal should be ecstatic that they got away with what they did.

Reagen Sulewski: This, to me, is the most surprising result of the weekend. People don't really care about troubled productions, but it's rarely something that results in a good movie. I personally love the look of gothic horror but it's kind of fallen out of favor and I expected it this to make a bit of a thud, considering how poorly reviewed it was. $30 million does feel like a missed opportunity, but it's a far better feeling that Universal has to have than they did four days ago.

Tom Macy: Percy and V-Day have much more tangible reasons for their success, such as teenagers and the title of the movie being the name of the day people saw it - now we know why the Ice Cube Friday franchise exists. The writing on the wall for Wolfman to flop was written so clearly, Universal was practically apologizing for this film's failure before it was released. You gotta give movie-goers some credit here for checking this one out despite the bad reviews citing a "tonal identity crisis" which, given all the reshoots to "add more action," don't surprise me. Universal no doubt is thrilled. But I'll also take a cue from Michael and say that once the relief/excitement Universal is now feeling subsides they're going to wonder if things had been handled more cleanly if this could have shone a little brighter.

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