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They missed their best window to sponsor The Amazing Race by *that* much

Kim Hollis: Gnomeo and Juliet, Miramax's effort at mashing up Toy Story-esque characters with Shakespeare, earned $25.4 million this weekend. What do you think of this result?

Josh Spiegel: I wish it was lower. This movie sounds so insanely terrible (and, based on some of the reviews, actively mocks Shakespeare) that I wanted it to fail. It's going to do pretty well, I guess, but if it had made under $20 million, I'd be smiling. My guess is that the number's so high because kids haven't had anything to watch in theaters for a month or so.

Edwin Davies: I still have trouble believing that this film exists, so its performance is frankly mindboggling to me. I seriously cannot fathom how any one could see the trailer and decide that they had to go and see it, unless some awful mishap had occurred at their local theater in which the prints of every other available film were destroyed, leaving Gnomeo and Juliet as their only option. And even then, they could just go and throw pennies on a railway track or something. It'd probably be a lot cheaper. I expect that the success of the film is solely down to a lack of options for kids, specifically young boys, since I don't know how many would be aching to watch Justin Bieber in 3D, which creates a bizarre scenario in which Gnomeo and Juliet is the more masculine alternative.





Matthew Huntley: I am actually impressed by this result because I didn't think this movie stood a fighting chance going into the weekend. There are rumors it's been sitting on the shelf for quite some time, but obviously Disney/Miramax chose a fortuitous time to release it and earned back some of their investment.

The movie does look cheesy and its tag lines ("A little adventure goes a lawn way") make you want to roll your eyes, but I could imagine kids getting excited about it, especially those between five-to-12 years of age. To a kid, it's bright, cheerful and colorful, so what's not to like? There's almost no possibility it will have the same adult cross-over appeal like Toy Story or How to Train Your Dragon, but when parents take their kids to the movies, they also have to buy a ticket, so I wouldn't be surprised if this one inched its way up to $100 million.

Shalimar Sahota: A low budget computer animation that's getting by on as much funniness as you can get out of garden gnomes. It's a surprising result. I will say that when I viewed the trailer at a packed cinema there were actually a lot of laughs. Given the title, it was probably the most romantic option on Valentine's Weekend. Also (mis?)using some celebrity voice talent to its advantage (Elton John, Ozzy Osbourne, Hulk Hogan (!), Dolly Parton) could have had a helping hand.

Brett Beach: I shudder a little to think that this is the type of film I am going to be taking my 13-month-old to (by default) in the not too distant future. The title didn't make me laugh, the trailer didn't make me laugh. Intriguing mashup of celebrity voices aside, I am at a loss to explain the mid-$20 million opening here. Depending on holds, it's going to get a lot closer to $100 million that I would have expected. I know the default is "there hasn't been anything new for kids in several weeks" but what chords were struck to get parents to pay extra for the 3D? Is it the Elton John soundtrack? Is he that powerful?!

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