Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (top); Zachary Gordon and director Thor Freudenthal on the set of the sleeper hit Diary of a Wimpy Kid (middle); Gerard Butler, Jennifer Aniston in The Bounty Hunter (bottom)
Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland grossed an estimated $34.5 million at the North America box office this weekend as per Box Office Mojo. The 3D fantasy adventure dropped a perfectly acceptable 45 percent from a week ago, easily topping the box-office chart for the third consecutive weekend. To a large extent thanks to costlier 3D/IMAX tickets Alice in Wonderland has earned an impressive $265.8 million.
Due to solid Saturday and Sunday business, when parents feel coerced to take their children to the movies, Diary of a Wimpy Kid landed at #2 with $21.8 million and a good $7,085 average at 3,077 screens. Directed by Thor Freudenthal, and featuring Zachary Gordon and Robert Capron, the $15 million kiddie flick focuses on the travails of a middle-school student.
Despite the presence of major stars like Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler, Andy Tennant's The Bounty Hunter had to settle for third place with $21 million. Considering how poorly received the romantic comedy has been — most critics have hated it — a $6,831 per-screen average isn't bad at all.
For comparison's sake, last weekend the Matt Damon Iraq War thriller Green Zone bowed with an average of $4,765 per screen, the Robert Pattinson romantic drama Remember Me had $3,657, and the teen comedy She's Out of My League $3,307.
But even though The Bounty Hunter's debut-weekend figures weren't weak, it's unlikely that the Aniston-Butler movie will get even close to recovering its $40 million price tag at the North American box office. (The movie would need to make about twice as much for the studio to break even, as exhibitors usually keep 40-50 percent of the grosses, not to mention marketing costs.)
Starring Jude Law and Forest Whitaker, Repo Men had a dismal opening at #4 with a mere $6.015 million and a meager $2,440 per-screen average. Miguel Sapochnik's futuristic action thriller won't get even close to recovering its relatively modest $32 million budget (unless the international market and home video/pay-per-view come to the rescue). That's more bad news for Universal, whose $100 million Green Zone has thus far grossed an underwhelming $24.7 million, and hasn't been doing all that great overseas, either.
Photos: Alice in Wonderland (Disney Enterprises); Diary of a Wimpy Kid (Rob McEwan / 20th Century Fox); The Bounty Hunter (Barry Wetcher / Columbia Pictures)