'Alice' Shrinks Competition's Grosses

Tim Burton and Johnny Depp's latest collaboration, Alice In Wonderland held onto the top spot for a second weekend, dropping 47% to bring in still a stellar $62 million.  With $208 million so far, 'Wonderland' is on track to be Tim Burton's highest grossing movie to date.

Matt Damon's third film with director Paul Greengrass, The Green Zone, opened in second place with $14.5 million.  With a $100 million budget, Universal Studios is not likely to earn back its investment during the film's run at the box office.

Paramount's She's Out of My League, with a $20 million budget, came in third place, with $9.6 million.  In fourth was Remember Me (with a $16 million budget). Both films should have no problem becoming profitable for their studios.

Finally, in fifth place was Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island, with $108 million gross to date, the additional $8 million from its third weekend will further help Scorsese and star Leonardo DiCaprio's bankability going forward.

'Wonderland' Apparently Full of Money

Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland blew away already high expectations, coming in with a total of $116 million domestically in its opening weekend and $210 million worldwide.  It came in as the sixth highest grossing opening weekend of all time, and easily took the record for largest opening weekend in the first quarter of the year.  Given its family-friendly nature, broadly popular subject matter, strong marketing, 3-D "wow" factor and Johnny Depp and Tim Burton's star power, the film should hold over well in the weekends to come, at least until such time as its 3-D screens are taken away for other, newer, films.

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What Will 'Alice' Do?

Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland opens this weekend, and will undoubtedly have a ripple effect on the box office. While the film has only received middling reviews so far (average 55% Tomatometer rating, 61% from the top critics and a 53 from Metacritic), it's riding a huge wave of hype and is the first big 3-D picture since Avatar came out in December.

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Competition 'Shutter'ed Out Again

Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island blocked newcomers Cop Out and The Crazies from the top spot at the box office this past weekend.  Shutter Island rode a wave of good word of mouth, dropping a respectable 46% in the face of bad weather on the Eastern portion of the continent to a tally of $22.2 million in its second weekend.  The film has earned $75 million to date.

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'Island' Shutters Competition

As expected, Martin Scorsese's new film starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Shutter Island, bested its box office competition this weekend, drawing an estimated $40.2 million.  This represents a best-ever debut for both Scorsese and DiCaprio, and is a fantastic debut for an R-rated genre flick.

Last week's big opener, Valentine's Day, no longer boosted by the natural publicity its namesake holiday generated, plummeted from the top spot.  It dropped 69%, coming in at $17.1 million for a cumulative total of $87.4 million so far.

In third place was James Cameron's Avatar, with $16.1 million.  It's 31.8% drop was it's biggest week-over-week to date.  With a whopping $687 million in domestic grosses to date, Avatar is undoubtedly reaching the end of its salad days, as it'll lose most of its 3-D screens to Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland in the coming weeks.

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief had its strong debut weekend cut in half, bringing in $15.3 million for $58.7 million so far.  With another $68 million in international grosses, it should have no problem earning back its $95 million production budget.  It's no Harry Potter, but a strong performance on DVD/Blu-ray could help to make other books in the series a reality.

Finally, rounding out the top five is last week's second place opener, and another film that suffered a massive drop week-over-week, The Wolfman.  The action/horror flick dropped 69% to $9.8 million in its second weekend.  With an estimated $50 million domestically, and an anemic $46 million internationally (this type of picture usually does much better overseas), it will likely lose money for Universal Studios.