14 DAY TRIAL // Tim Burton’s latest film, “Alice in Wonderland,” released in 3D and starring heavy names like Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Anne Hathaway, has just broken most known records terms of box office gross over a single weekend for a non-summer release. Making over $210 million worldwide and over $116 domestically, the film now stands great chances of actually taking down “Avatar” in sales, optimistic estimates would indicate, as The Wrap informs.
“Avatar” has long passed the $2 billion threshold at the box office, officially becoming the best selling movie ever made, and thus taking down the previous record holder, another film by James Cameron, “Titanic.” It would seem that, based on how it fared in its first weekend of release, when it wasn’t even out in theaters all over the world, some believe “Alice in Wonderland” has what it takes to take down “Avatar” in the long run.
“Culminating what Disney distribution chief Chuck Viane called ‘one of the greatest theatrical rides I’ve ever been on,’ the Tim Burton-directed 3D adaptation of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ broke pretty much every first-quarter box-office record there is, while grossing $116.3 million in North America and $210.3 million worldwide, according to studio estimates. The domestic debut shattered the previous January-March opening benchmark, established in 2004 by ‘The Passion of the Christ’ ($83.3 million). And not only was it the biggest 3D opening of all time, it also took down ‘Avatar’s’ recently set IMAX record, selling out each of the 188 digital 3D outlets on the way to a weekend total of $11.9 million,” The Wrap says.
“Opening in 3,728 theaters, ‘Alice’ scored tepid reviews – it tallied only a 53 percent ‘fresh’ on Rotten Tomatoes – but solid word-of-mouth among movie-goers, registering an ‘A-minus’ rating from research firm CinemaScore. And for its part, Disney was able to launch an ambitious marketing campaign for the $200 million Johnny Depp film – which included full takeover ads of major metropolitan daily newspapers – with its key marketing personnel still in flux,” the same publication says of how Disney pushed the film.
Indeed, promotion for it was very intense, with the studio investing a (not so) small fortune in it not solely because of the story and the animation, but also because it was a Johnny Depp film. Critics though, as also noted above, were not that happy about the outcome, with some even saying that this was the worst performance Depp gave in his entire career, while the movie was nothing short of an ambitious, yet shallow effort.