Alice still in Wonderland at the box office (Mar.19-21)

Another weekend, more Alice, this time with $34.1 million, down 45.5% but overall business was up 20% from the same timeframe last year according to BoxOfficeMojo.

So what does $34.1 million mean besides another first place? Well this is the 6th third weekend ever and brings Alice in Wonderland to a US total of $265.4 million, kind of a big deal for Tim Burton since this just became his biggest hit ever (unadjusted for inflation, Batman from 1989 made $251.1 million). Its also his 11th fastest movie to get to $250 million, Alice did it in 16 days (on Saturday). Right now this stands at $565.4 million worldwide, more then any other Tim Burton movie ever. Looking back, besides the freak that was Avatar, Alice is the only movie to stay first for 3 weekends since August 29-31 2008 when Tropic Thunder was on top of the box office for a third week.

In second place we have a very surprising Diary of a Wimpy Kid with $22.1 million, more then enough for Fox to start a franchise based on this children’s book series. I figure with this kind of start Wimpy should go on to make around $45-$50 million in the US, a lot more then the $15 million budget this had and is leaps and bounds over similarly themed movies when it comes to box office.

The Bounty Hunter scores an impressive $20.6 million yet the closer I look at it the less impressive it actually seems coming from two bankable actors that scored much bigger hits in this genre.

Repo Man was as expected, dead on arrival with just $6.1 million while Green Zone in 5th place will surely go down as one of Universal’s biggest bombs of the year with $6.1 million and just $24.8 million in total, all of that on a $100 million budget. Now I know previous collaborations from Paul Grengrass and Matt Damon have scored two major hits for Universal but seriously, next time before they green light a similarly themed movie they should do some better budget management because this is just ridiculous.

For She’s Out of My League I’m not worried in any way because while this is in 6th place with $5.8 million and $19.7 in total, it only cost $20 million and will see far more success on DVD and Blu-Ray then something like Green Zone.

Shutter Island and Avatar are neck a neck in 7th and 8th place with $4.7 and $4 million, well, they are neck a neck as long as you don’t look at their totals, $115.7 million and $736.9 million ($2.66 billion worldwide).

Our Family Wedding and Remember Me finish the top 10 and by this time next week we won’t remember either.

Here’s a look at the top 10: