So if it finished with 79 million that'd be disappointing. C'mon folks...

It is not a prequel.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032138/trivia?tab=mc

Nowhere to be found. Or else you could start calling Alice in Wonderland some sort of a sequel too.

Except, of course, it is a prequel. To say otherwise is to deserve a bit of a slap.

It documents the origin of the Wizard of Oz and one of the most iconic screen antagonists ever, the Wicked Witch of the West. It is the same as the Star Wars prequels, except they obviously had to change a few sounds and tints to avoid infringing upon Warner's copyright.

It could drop below, but Alice in Wonderland dropped 29.7% and Lorax dropped 31.6% on this same weekend. So...

Great opening for Oz, but it's pretty depressing that this will likely be the last weekend until May where 2013 was actually up from 2012. The next couple of weeks are going to be really BORING unless there are some more major breakouts.

Also Jack got SLAUGHTERED. How ironic huh ?

Stupid scheduling for WB and Jack. They doomed it to failure.

I absolutely agree with this. If you have a product people want to see then it doesn't have to be released in the summer. Summer gets too crowded. Without so much competition many would be better served released during other parts of the year.

I would agree with you, except the Wizard of Oz is based off of a classic book in the American canon.

I'm with the doc on this one, if you call Oz a prequel, then you HAVE to call Burton's Alice in Wonderland a sequel.

Fair enough, just don't slap me when I don't call Oz a prequel and I won't slap you when you call Burton in Wonderland a sequel.

Fair enough if you call it that. But I don't. Alice in Wonderland is thus the 2nd-biggest non-sequel/prequel opener ever and Oz is the 7th-biggest.

Yeeeeeeah

Alice in Wonderland is a sequel. I have no problem saying as much. Though I believe audiences absorbed it more as a, shall we say, recreation: a chance to see the world of Wonderland presented in big-budget 3-D live action. They did not emphasize the idea of a teenage Alice returning to Wonderland in the trailers and TV spots, though it is integral to the film.

Oz is, again, definitely a prequel. To call it an original film is just insane. Many people went because they grew up with The Wizard of Oz, and this was conceived and advertised as a chance to see what transpired before Dorothy's adventure.

Fantastic OW for Oz. Looking good for $250m which is about expected or a little above.

Jack the Giant Slayer never really had a shot at huge numbers but $100-$120m was possible with better scheduling.

As for March and blockbuster scheduling - the studios have been adding a big live action and a big animated film there for some time now. Unlike Summer you cant really over crowd months like March but you can certainly schedule better.

The studios famously filled the first quarter of 1997 with big budget blockbusters and star vehicles to mostly negative results (a Jim Carrey comedy and a re-release of a 20 year old film topped the BO) - while other films disappointed or didnt quite explode as expected. The studios then began to pack the summers again and ignore the rest of the year bar the occasional big film or surprise until another attempt in 2002. Been a mixed bag since.

I'm not saying they should release one every week like in the summer. I just find it surprising everyone seems to want their big movies in the summer when clearly they can do well at other times of year too.

I agree they should release more year round.

I'm just saying they do try it from time but then get scared off by one or two bombs and revert to over crowding the summer.

I still think that the most "blockbuster-unused" weekend of the year is the Labor Day weekend. I want a major release there.

Also, with that release date, the movie could rule over the entire September.

Oz's drop next weekend will be interesting. I just checked Alice's and I totally forgot it dropped less than 50%. Anything below 55% for Oz would be excellent.

Wow, under 50% for Alice was amazing after that opening. I also forgot it held that well.

The B+ Cinemascore for Oz is a bit curious. Probably won't mean much in the long run I don't remember the last movie that opened this big and had a score that low. Inception at least had an 'A' from young viewers to counter old people not getting it.

While it didn't have a huge opening Bridesmaids sure had amazing fucking legs for having a B+ CinemaScore.

Inception also had a B+ from Cinemascore. I think in both cases elements of the film turned off a small segment of the audience, but everyone else that saw it LOVED it and spread the word.

Yeah, I really don't see him as a draw. He just gets lucky being in the right films. If he had to open something like John Carter it wouldn't have fared any better than it did with Kitsch. Yet Kitsch is considered Box Office poison.

Franco seems to avoid Dead Man Down caliber/size productions. He is either the beside-the-point lead in incredibly huge films or the star of films with nonexistent financial expectations because they are so very small and idiosyncratic.