Surprising no one, ‘Oz: The Great and Powerful’ held onto the #1 spot at the box office this weekend. Disney’s ‘Wizard of Oz‘ prequel conjured another $42.2 million. Its $145 million domestic cumulative total is now higher than its international total of $136.8 million. That brings its ten-day worldwide gross to $281.8 million so far.
None of the week’s new wide releases came anywhere near touching ‘Oz’. However, among them was a pretty unexpected upset.
Predicted to come in at third with $12.7 million, ‘The Call‘ actually closed the weekend in second place with $17.1 million. With a $13 million budget, this Sony acquisition is in pretty good shape. 61% of audiences were female and 53% were over age 30. With these demographics, despite the light advertising campaign, ‘The Call’ could finish around $45 million.
Meanwhile, ‘The Incredible Burt Wonderstone‘ was expected to debut with $18 million, but actually only opened to $10.3 million. Comedies typically have long legs, but this $30 million flick looks like a box office bust.
‘Jack the Giant Slayer‘ and ‘Identity Thief‘ came in at fourth and fifth places respectively. Both held their ground very well. ‘Jack’ slipped 36.8%, made another $6.2 million and is now at $53.9 million domestically. ‘Identity Thief’ fell 28.7%, earned $4.5 million and has a domestic total of $123.7 million.
Of the limited releases, ‘Spring Breakers‘ made the most noise. On just three screens, the black comedy earned $270,000. Its $90,000 per-screen average is the 22nd best of all time. It will be interesting to see how the movie performs when it expands to more than 600 screens this Friday. On two screens, Studio Ghibli’s English-dubbed animated film ‘From Up on Poppy Hill‘ earned $55,000 and warranted a $27,500 per-screen average. On three screens, ‘Ginger & Rosa‘ earned $45,000 and a $15,000 per-screen average. To offer perspective, on 3,912 screens, ‘Oz’ had a per-screen average of $10,793.
The lightest of this weekend’s limited releases was ‘Upside Down‘. On 11 screens, the sci-fi romance flick only earned $28,300, a per-screen average of just $2,573.
Top 10:
1. ‘Oz: The Great and Powerful’ (Buena Vista) – $42,222,000
2. ‘The Call’ (TriStar) – $17,100,000
3. ‘The Incredible Burt Wonderstone’ (Warner Bros.) – $10,305,000
4. ‘Jack the Giant Slayer’ (Warner Bros.) – $6,220,000
5. ‘Identity Thief’ (Universal) – $4,519,000
6. ‘Snitch’ (Summit) – $3,500,000
7. ’21 & Over’ (Relativity) – $2,619,000
8. ‘Silver Linings Playbook’ (Weinstein) – $2,587,000
9. ‘Safe Haven’ (Relativity) – $2,495,000
10. ‘Escape From Planet Earth’ (Weinstein) – $2,327,000
