Posted by
Rosario T. Calabria on March 7, 2010 at 5:44 pm

Update: Click here for the final actual weekend numbers.
Original article follows below.
Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland opened to an estimated $116 million, the biggest opening ever for Burton (crushing the $68.533M opening of 2001’s “Planet of the Apes”) and the best-ever opening debut for a 3D film (eclipsing the $77.025M for Avatar). Buoyed by 3D and IMAX, Alice in Wonderland opened on Friday to an estimated $41M and grew 8.1% to $44.325M on Saturday. Disney is projecting a 30.1% decline on Sunday to $30.975M. That translates to a per screen theater average of $31,196.
The 3-day tally is enough to put the film ahead of Valentine’s Day ($106.42M) as the highest-grossing film of 2010. 3D and IMAX was clearly a factor in ‘Alice‘s huge opening, as the film grossed a record $11.9M from just 188 IMAX venues (an incredible $63,197 per site) and 3D (2,063 of the 3,728 theaters were 3D) contributed a record estimated $76M.
Worldwide receipts were also strong, an estimated $94M from 5,600 sites in 40 territories (for a per-screen average of $16,786) putting its opening weekend worldwide cume at an estimated $210.3 million. Head on over the jump for more analysis and the weekend chart.
Continue reading Weekend Box Office Numbers (March 5-7, 2010): Alice in Wonderland opens to massive $116.1M
