Disney’s Oz the Great and Powerful performed to expectation, scoring $80.2 million at the weekend box-office and turning in the highest opening weekend of 2013 so far. As of right now, the film has scored a massive $150.2 million worldwide and that’s without numbers from China and France.
Looking at the domestic number, 53% of the tickets sold were for 3D showings, including 10% in IMAX, which puts that $80 million number in a little more perspective considering more than half of the tickets sold were sold at a premium rate.
It will be interesting to see how Oz performs next weekend as it did earn a “B+” CinemaScore rating, though that’s exactly what Jack the Giant Slayer earned only to watch its earnings plummet this weekend against Oz, dropping 63% from its opening weekend to bring in only $10 million.
The weekend’s other new wide release was Dead Man Down starring Colin Farrell, Noomi Rapace and Terrence Howard and it couldn’t even live up to the $6 million tracking, bringing in a soft $5.3 million along with a “B-” CinemaScore. Doesn’t bode well for its future prospects, which is too bad because I actually quite enjoyed it.
Looking over Laremy’s box office predictions from Thursday, he was $5 million high on his Oz result and $1.2 million high on Dead Man Down.
As for the readers, well Austin G. nailed the Oz prediction with his $80.2 million number, which deserves some real kudos and Jaylav3205 deserves just as much praise for a spot-on $5.3 million prediction for Dead Man Down. I’m not sure we’ve ever had a weekend where two readers hit the numbers exactly so I guess that’s something to be excited about.
Next weekend sees the release of the awful-looking Halle Berry thriller The Call as well as the new Jim Carrey, Steve Carell and Steve Buscemi comedy The Incredible Burt Wonderstone. Spring Breakers hits limited theaters so that won’t make much of a dent, but if you’re interested in throwing out early numbers on any of those I’m all ears.
Speaking of which, if you follow the site on Facebook you’ve probably already seen my little sneak peek at a new Box Office feature I am working on. Hopefully I’ll have it finished sooner rather than later. Also, if you haven’t hit that “Like” button and started following the site on Facebook, what are you waiting for?
