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Kim Hollis: Magic Mike XXL earned $12.9 million from Friday-to-Sunday and took in $27.9 million over its first five days. What do you think of this result?

Felix Quinonez: On one hand, I'm a little surprised by the steep drop off. I expected XXL to at least match the three-day opening of the first movie over the long weekend. So that's clearly disappointing but because of the low budget, it's perfectly fine. In the end, the movie will see a profit during its theatrical run, which is something Genisys has almost no chance of doing.

Edwin Davies: I think it was hurt by opening on Wednesday. It burned off demand pretty quickly when it could probably have grabbed some headlines if it opened on Friday, then even if it remains front-loaded it would have had a bit more momentum behind it. It might also have suffered a little from people who saw the first film and were disappointed that a film that was sold as a good time was actually a pretty downbeat look at what it takes to scramble to make ends meet. The ads for Magic Mike XXL also promised a good time, and based on the word-of-mouth it actually delivers, but some viewers might have been a bit wary.

It won't be able to match the $119 million the first film earned, but word-of-mouth could help it a little bit. Even if it doesn't, it should cover its production and marketing costs within two weeks domestically, after which it should see a very decent profit. This is a modest win, but a win nonetheless.

Ben Gruchow: I mentioned this in my review of MMXXL, but the marketing team for the first film pulled an absolutely brilliant bait-and-switch over on their prospective audience. Magic Mike had the buzz of a gender-flipped version of Showgirls; when it had that monstrous opening weekend, the audience realized that they were instead in the middle of a surprisingly contemplative film that was mostly not about strip routines. To my mind, that absolutely affected the level of anticipation for this film, and I think what we're seeing here is the kind of gross that the first film would have gotten if not for that extra layer of buzz.

In fact, the $12.9 million three-day gross isn't too far out of line with what Steven Soderbergh movies tend to open with, if you except Contagion and the Ocean movies (and this film recognizably has Soderbergh's touch, regardless of the directorial switch). Haywire opened to $8.4 million, Side Effects to $9.1 million, The Informant! to $10.4 million. I think the movie's going to throw well under the original’s gross, but that sting can be lessened by noting that: a) the budget for this one was $15 million, and it's pretty much already in the black; and b) the first Magic Mike’s gross was the aberration, not the norm, for this filmmaking team.

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