Weekend Box-Office: March 5-7, 2010

WEEKEND BOX-OFFICE

One
crazy hatter will rule them all…

C’mon schmoes! You’ve got to improve on your
box-office prediction abilities! Last weekend we
asked our readers how much $$$ ALICE IN WONDERLAND would make
in its opening weekend and only 4% of folks guessed between
$100-125M…you’ve got to do better than that! I’m actually
half-kidding since most of the industry didn’t see this one coming
either as ALICE breaks records with a $116M opening in its first 3
days of release alone!

The film became the highest-grossing non-sequel
opening of all-time, beating IRON MAN’s 2008 record of $102M.
Needless to say, ALICE benefited from its 3D theaters, as over 50%
of the theaters showing the film were showing it in three
dimensions, accounting for 65% of the film’s overall revenues. The
movie has already grossed $210M worldwide and appears to be yet
another monster hit from the man behind the make-up, Johnny Depp.

The film also became director Tim Burton’s biggest
grossing opener of all-time, squashing his previous $68M record
with PLANET OF THE APES back in 2001. The movie also became
Disney’s 2nd highest opening movie of all-time behind PIRATES OF
THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN’S CHEST (which also stars Depp). If you
would have told me 10 years ago that Johnny Depp would be
headlining two of Walt Disney’s biggest blockbusters of all-time,
I woulda told you to go cut your penis off with his scissorhands,
but it’s happened, people!

The film also broke the record for biggest opening
weekend for a 3D movie, and yes…that includes AVATAR, which had
only opened with about $77M. Speaking of the possible big
Oscar-winning movie, Cameron’s latest has now surpassed the $720M
mark domestically, and may add plenty of dollars to that amount,
if the film wins more awards tonight. Despite being released over 3
months ago, AVATAR still sits among the top 5 at the
box-office and earned another $8M this past weekend.

The weekend’s only other new release, BROOKLYN’S
FINEST, did "ayight" in 2nd place, with about $14M
(probably more than five of Wesley Snipes’ latest films
combined!!). Kevin Smith broke his own personal box-office record,
as COP OUT dropped about 50% of its audience from last weekend,
but is now totaling over $32M (previous record was ZACK AND MIRI
with $31M). SHUTTER ISLAND also lost its top spot, but was still
going strong in 3rd place this weekend, as it closes in on the
$100M mark.

The answer to our poll
question from a few weeks ago about which film would "end
up" with the most money earned between VALENTINE’S DAY, PERCY
JACKSON and WOLFMAN turned out to be VALENTINE’S DAY, and by quite
the margin as well. WOLFMAN was 1 of the 2 films to drop out of
the top 10 this week, with about $60M in all, along with TOOTH
FAIRY, which has earned $56M so far.

Next week sees the release of 4 new films
including the director of the last two BOURNE movies helming an
action-thriller with the star of the BOURNE movies, Matt Damon,
despite it apparently having nothing to do with Jason Bourne. Huh.
The film is called GREEN
ZONE. Jay Baruchel, co-star in a handful of Apatow
productions, will be starring in a romantic comedy of his own
called SHE’S
OUT OF MY LEAGUE. The Twilight-ers, or whatever the f*ck
they’re called, will also be out in droves as the star of those
wimpy vampire flicks, Robert Pattinson, gives drama a shot with REMEMBER
ME. Finally, the African-American contingent in the audience
will get something called OUR
FAMILY WEDDING, a romantic comedy starring a skinny Forest
Whitaker and Regina King. My prediction: ALICE IN WONDERLAND
remains #1 next weekend. Duh!! 

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