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Kim Hollis: Escape from Planet Earth, an animated film from The Weinstein Company, earned $15.9 million over the weekend. What do you think about this result?

Brett Ballard-Beach: It's spectacular! It looks marginally better than Hoodwinked but it was the only new family fare in about eight weeks, so it is one of those "success by default" stories that The Weinstein Company is occasionally able to churn out. I expect a Hood vs Evil-esque sequel about five years after the last person has stopped caring.

Bruce Hall: The fact that we're even discussing this film probably makes it a success. Talk about a project that had virtually no marketing behind it. And critics have not been kind. But it's true that we haven't had a new family film in about two months, so for a lot of people who have to entertain kids on this long weekend, Escape From Planet Earth just might be the ticket. This wasn't an exorbitantly expensive film, so while I don't expect it to have legs past this week, it may well earn enough to be profitable.

Matthew Huntley: Wait, this movie actually opened over the weekend?! You could have fooled me because, like Bruce, its marketing didn't register with me at all (I remember a trailer for it when I saw Wreck-It-Ralph, but that's about it). With that said, its performance is decent and it will likely show good legs by default, so I'd call it a small victory.

Felix Quinonez: I honestly had no clue what this movie was until Friday and have still not seen any previews. I just googled it and saw that it had a $40 million budget and they CLEARLY didn't spend much on marketing so it should do fine. Not exactly a smash but it should at least make its budget back.

Jay Barney: I don't think this is a bad opening at all. The $40 million budget number has me scared a little that this one may have to work a bit, but a $16 million opening for this type of movie is okay. There is a chance, with some kids having vacation over the next couple of weeks, that this might have decent holds. By the time people read this mid-week it will already have made back half of the budget, but it might be a little too optimistic to predict this to make 100% of the amount spent on it. My son saw it. He said he liked it. That is the target audience, and there isn't much competition for kids attention right now.

Edwin Davies: I'm very impressed by this result considering that I didn't know it was something that existed until the day before it opened. Seeing what others have said, I don't think that I was alone in this. Obviously the film is going to struggle a bit to make back its budget, but for something that basically no one seemed to have heard of to make $16 million over the course of a weekend is a success albeit a muted one. The Weinsteins will probably be very happy with this one since they won't have completely lost their shirts on it, unlike with that Hoodwinked sequel that people seemed to forget about even as they were watching it.

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