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Kim Hollis: Resident Evil: Afterlife, the fourth installment in the Screen Gems franchise, and the first non-Avatar film to use James Cameron's 3D technology, opened to $26.7 million. What do you think of this result?

Josh Spiegel: On the one hand, the fourth movie in a series that manages to be popular without being one of the biggest franchises in the world making more than $25 million in its first three days is great. Also, though Afterlife's budget is $60 million, it's already made that back if you include the international estimates. However, unlike a majority of the 3D movies overpopulating the marketplace, this movie was shot in 3D and had 2,000 theaters showing it in the format. With the high prices, it could only muster up $3 million more than the first two films' opening weekends? That seems a bit disappointing, though Sony had four films in this week's top ten, so they can't be too sad. It just seems like the movie could/should have made more.





Bruce Hall: I see the point about the added profit the 3D format presumably might have provided, but $27 million is $27 million. The semantics are debatable, but we're looking at an improved opening frame haul over the last three installments in a franchise that really should have run out of gas a long time ago. On the other hand, without any tracking data it is hard to tell how much the higher ticket prices made up for what I highly suspect may be a smaller actual audience. That would be especially interesting to me because personally, I was tired of the series after the first film and I question how many fans of Resident Evil would insist that these are "good" movies as opposed to just "good fun." I suppose considering the target audience here, that may not matter. In any event I fall into the latter demographic because while I find the Resident Evil series to be transparent variations on a theme, I never, EVER get tired of watching Milla Jovovich, with her big guns and little outfits, making piles and piles of zombies into mincemeat.

Ask me to choose between more story or more Milla and it's Milla Time for me, every time. Guilty as charged.

And considering the fact that this movie self consciously ends on a cliffhanger and has all but already recovered its budget we may as well go ahead and start dreaming up titles for the sequel. Resident Evil: Reanimation? Resurrection? No! Resuscitation!

Brett Beach : Although I have little to no interest in the series, it should be counted as a win because a) It did make more in its opening weekend than any of the previous three installments (and we have seen several instances this past summer where 3-D did not help achieve this end); and b) Much like the Final Destination or Ice Age series, these have done progressively (and impressively) better overseas and managed to maintain relevance domestically even after nearly a decade. This is one of the best examples of a series that continues to deliver what its fans want (as testified by Mr. Mumpower's impassioned soliloquy in the weekend forecast) and does it within budgets that remain relatively modest within the Hollywood industry. This one will top Extinction in global gross, making a part five a no-brainer.

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