ALICE IN WONDERLAND, GREEN ZONE, REMEMBER ME Box Office: Early Friday Figures

Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (top); Matt Damon in Paul Greengrass' Green Zone (middle); Emilie de Ravin, Robert Pattinson in Allen Coulter's Remember Me (bottom)

Alice in Wonderland continued to lead the pack on Friday, according to various box-office reports. Tim Burton's fantasy adventure grossed an estimated $17.4 million, far outpacing the competition. No surprise there.

The Paul Greengrass-Matt Damon Iraq War drama Green Zone earned $5 million at #2, followed by the Robert Pattinson vehicle Remember Me with $3.6 million. Those figures may be considered "modest" for both Damon and Pattinson, but that would be comparing apples and watermelons. The Bourne Identity and the Twilight Saga movies are franchises that boasted wide name recognition — by way of bestselling novels — even before the movies came out. Though a costly production ($100 million), Green Zone is set in Iraq with Americans portrayed as jerks, hardly the sort of thing to lure millions of weekend US moviegoers, while Remember Me amounts to an indie drama with a much talked about feel-bad Sep. 11, 2001, finale.

Considering the subject matters of both Green Zone and Remember Me, and the fact that neither movie was particularly well-received by US critics, both Damon and Pattinson did quite well for themselves.

One movie that did better than expected was Jim Field Smith's teen comedy She's Out of My League, which has no stars but grossed an estimated $3.3 million at #4. Another new entry, Our Family Wedding, was #5 with $2.5 million. The film stars Academy Award winner Forest Whitaker and America Ferrera. Whether these last two films will remain among the top five depends on how well they perform on Saturday or Sunday.