Alice is very big, opens with $41 million Friday

Update: $45 million on Saturday, Alice is looking like it will open with around $120 million for the weekend, biggest 3D opening ever.

Alice in Wonderland, Tim Burton’s latest film starring Johnny Deep is on its way to becoming not only the popular director’s biggest opening ever, but also by far the biggest opening in March or the January-April period for that matter.

According to Nikki Finke at Deadly Hollywood, Alice opened with a monstrous $41 million on Friday. Now this are still just estimates, the final number might be even bigger, or lower (but not by much). It seems the first big genuine blockbuster of 2010 did not disappoint one bit.

Being the first 3D movie after almost 3 months of Avatar seems to have come with perks for Alice in Wonderland, lots and lots of perks. Now you see, Avatar while not the first digital 3D movie, opened this new medium to a much wider audience and it looks like Alice benefited immensely. Being basted on one of the most popular stories ever told didn’t hurt either.

Speaking of Avatar, as expected, the blue Sci-Fi monster (at the box office) finally came down hard when most of its 3D screens were taken away. It did an estimated $1.9 million on Friday and will probably finish the weekend with around $8 million.

Now the big question in how will Alice hold up? A good indication of that will be the Saturday numbers and how much it drops (if it drops) that day. Either way we will find out in the next couple of weeks. Now two things are certain, it will finish North of $200 million in North America and might even go North of $300 million. And the second certain thing is that I can’t wait to see how Clash of the Titans will do now thanks to 3D. Might we see another $100+ million opening weekend? It sure looks like it.

I will update as new numbers come in.