Alice Completes (Mad) Hat-Trick
March 22, 2010
For the third weekend in a row, Alice in Wonderland topped the chart at the box office. The number one new release was also bigger than expected. However, the rest of the chart failed to live up to expectations, which led to a total weekend of $126 million, a nearly 14% drop-off from the previous weekend. That said, this was a 20% increase from the same weekend last year, which is obviously a much more important number. Year-to-date, 2010 has pulled in $2.42 billion, 9.0% higher than the same pace last year. It's still way too early to crack open the champagne, but this is a great start.
Alice in Wonderland won for the third weekend in a row, pulling in $34.19 million. This was within a rounding error of Thursday's prediction. The film now has $265.43 million after 17 days of release. Normally, I would be rather confident in predicting that by this time next week it would reach $300 million. However, since it will be losing a lot of its 3D screens to How to Train Your Dragon this coming weekend, it could suffer a massive drop-off. That said, it will be the first film of 2010 to reach $300 million at the box office. $400 million is likely out of reach, but it could come relatively close. Unless 2010 turns out to be a wild one at the box office, it should be in the top three for the year.
Diary of a Wimpy Kid bullied its way into second place with $22.13 million during its opening weekend of release. Looking forward, the film should do rather well considering its reviews and its target demographic. The film is just a hair shy of 50% positive and for a kids' movie that's pretty good. The younger demographic should help it have longer than average legs. Some reports have the film costing only $15 million to make, which means this is a huge opening for the studio, even if it costs twice as much money to advertise. The studio will still make a big chunk of profit by the time it hits the home market.
Third place went to The Bounty Hunter with $20.69 million. This was weaker than expected, but given its reviews, it's not as bad as it could have been. I don't expect strong legs, but it should help push Jennifer Aniston's career box office over the $1 billion mark, while Gerard Butler will get there shortly after How to Train Your Dragon opens.
The final wide release of the week was Repo Men, which apparently was too high concept for wide audiences. It barely managed fourth place with $6.13 million during its opening weekend. Critics were just as unimpressed and its word-of-mouth will likely kill it by next weekend. It will likely evaporate from theaters before April is over.
Speaking of evaporating from theaters, The Green Zone landed in fifth place, but with a weaker than expected $6.11 million over the weekend and $24.85 million after two. It is very likely the film will suffer a sizeable drop in its theater count this weekend. Even $40 million is likely out of reach.
She's Out of My League just missed the top five with $5.80 million over the weekend for a total of $19.74 million after two. That was a drop-off of less than 41%, but its per theater average is so low that I don't think a lot of theater owners are going to care. Many will drop the film as soon as possible. Fellow sophomore film, Our Family Wedding, fell to ninth place with $3.74 million over the weekend and $13.61 million after two. It fell more than 50%, but that was better than average for the sophomore class. Finally, Remember Me barely remained in the top ten, down almost 60% to $3.25 million over the weekend and $13.92 million after two. This is further proof that while Twilight has proven to be a massive box office hit, its box office power hasn't rubbed off on its cast.
Filed under: Our Family Wedding, Remember Me, She's Out of My League, Repo Men, Alice in Wonderland, Green Zone, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The Bounty Hunter