Weekend Box-Office: March 12-14, 2010

WEEKEND BOX-OFFICE

Depp & co. gross over $200M in first 10 days

It only took 10 days for Johnny Depp and Tim Burton to beat their own record together, as ALICE IN WONDERLAND already surpassed their previous highest grossing movie together, CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLAT FACTORY ($206M). ALICE has already grossed close to $210M domestically and close to $450M worldwide. That’s close to half a BILLION dollars in its first 10 days of release, yo. Is it the 3D factor or is the film really that good?

A slew of new releases couldn’t crack the top spot this week though, as Matt Damon and his director from the Bourne movies turned GREEN ZONE into a decent hit in 2nd place, with about $15M. Jay Baruchel first “starring role” in a romantic comedy, SHE’S OUT OF MY LEAGUE, also garnered some okay numbers in 3rd place and about $10M.

A lot of people in the industry were also keeping their eye on Robert Pattinson’s leading role in REMEMBER ME (he of TWILIGHT and “hair” fame) to see if the Twi-hards would be able to create yet another massive success based solely on their adoration of the actor and his goofy hair, but apparently that didn’t happen. The film finished in 4th place with about $8M but was also hampered by negative reviews, many of which focused on the film’s classless ending.

Marty Scorsese’s SHUTTER ISLAND crossed the $100M mark this weekend as well, while the other new release entitled OUR FAMILY WEDDING had the worst opening of all the newbies with only about $7.5M in receipts. ALICE IN WONDERLAND’s $62M gross over the past 3 days was almost as much as all of the other films in the top 10 combined! ($67M).

The 4 films that dropped out of the top 10 this weekend included CRAZY HEART ($34M) despite Jeff Bridges picking up an Oscar for his role in the film just this past weekend, PERCY JACKSON AND THE HARRY POTTER RIP-OFF ARTISTS ($82M), VALENTINE’S DAY ($109M) and DEAR JOHN ($79M). The latter film was based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks, who also wrote THE NOTEBOOK, which had also made around the same amount back in 2004 with $81M.

Despite not winning ‘Best Picture’ at the Oscars last weekend, AVATAR continued to woo audiences, as it added another $6M to its grand total, which currently stands at $730M domestically, and over $2.6 BILLION worldwide (TITANIC stands in 2nd place with only $1.8 BILLION). Despite winning ‘Best Picture’ (but only playing in about 350 theaters), THE HURT LOCKER managed a 17th place on the box-office charts this past weekend, adding about $800,000 to its overall total of $15.7M. Mind you, the film has been released on DVD since January 10th, so I’m not sure who exactly is paying extra to go watch it on the big screen at this point.

Next week sees the release of 3 new big flicks including my personal favorite REPO MEN, which isn’t a sequel to the 1984 Emilio Estevez starring cult classic REPO MAN, but rather a new sci-fi thriller featuring Jude Law and Forest Whitaker. Jennifer Aniston also returns to the big screen with her big ol’ boring personality, alongside the always-fun Gerard Butler, in something called THE BOUNTY HUNTER (if this movie was about Dog the bounty hunter, I’d be there with cowbells on!). And finally, a family movie titled DIARY OF A WIMPY KID, which might have been based on my elementary school years. This week’s question is an easy one: How much $$$ do you think ALICE IN WONDERLAND will bring in once everything is said and done? VOTE HERE!!!

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