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Kim Hollis: Dark Skies, a horror film from the Weinsteins/Dimension, has earned $13.4 million since opening last weekend. What do you think about its performance so far?

Jay Barney: It has made four times more than what it took to make it, so it has to be seen as a success. It will be out of the top ten by the time many readers view this. It will be forgotten or ignored by most but will be one more film in the video library of horror fans.

Felix Quinonez: It got the job done. It came, made some money, and it's outta here. Nothing much to say about this one.

Bruce Hall: A classic example of "drive by box office". Cheap ass horror film - regardless of quality - makes roughly four times its budget in two weeks and then drops off the face of the earth. In and out like a ninja. Next stop, Netflix.

Edwin Davies: As everyone else has said, this is an unqualified win. I don't think anyone expected it to be an out of nowhere hit in the vein Paranormal Activity, something which was reflected by the fairly restrained marketing effort, which suggests to me that the studio had modest expectations and didn't want to spend a huge amount of money trying to make it a bigger hit than it needed to be. By the time it's through in theaters, it will probably have taken home five or six times what it cost to make and will probably do solid business on home media, and maybe even get a sequel no one asks for or goes to see in three years time.

David Mumpower: I would add that the movie has functioned as a sort of sequel to The Fourth Kind, which earned a little over two and a half times its production budget as well. We're talking about low rent horror being a bankable comedy. This may be a new offshoot sub-genre developing, and a lucrative one at that.

Kim Hollis: Phantom, a movie you may not have heard of, opened in 1,118 theaters this weekend and earned a whopping $508,000. Say something funny about Phantom.

Jay Barney: Well, the name seems to suit the film and the amount of money it made.

Felix Quinonez: Let's just say it was aptly titled.

Bruce Hall:

From: Cary Elwes
Sent: Sunday, March 03, 2013 10:17 AM
To: Ed Harris
Subject: Phantom

This helps. Thank you.

CE

Edwin Davies: If only they'd added Billy Zane in a skintight purple suit, maybe they could have cracked $1 million.

David Mumpower: Was Ben Affleck the bomb in this, yo?

Kim Hollis: I'm just wondering why Nicolas Cage wasn't involved in this project.