Go big or go home. Why, in an era when mainstream films are stuck in limited release, the relative successes of The Debt and Our Idiot Brother matter.

Normally I would not spend a column championing a small $5 million comedy that is on track to gross over $30 million as anything other than a 'gee, I like when that happens'.  And while there are many reasons to praise the $14 million six-day opening of The Debt, the most surprising thing about it is that Focus Features debuted the film wide enough to achieve that kind of opening in the first place.  In a movie-going world where any number of seemingly mainstream pictures die in the art-house, peaking at 500 screens and unable to capitalize on mainstream buzz or word of mouth, kudos to the Weinstein Company and Focus Features for just opening these movies the old fashioned way.  They may have sensibilities that differ from the most popular versions of their respective genre.  Our Idiot Brother is (allegedly) a bit more painful and quirky than a Judd Apatow film, while The Debt is closer to John le Carré than Jason Bourne.  But they are both damn-well mainstream entertainments, and both films will be quite profitable because their respective studios treated them as such.