The early word of mouth on Disney’s latest, the live action Tim Burton directed Alice in Wonderland, was not overwhelmingly positive, and the curious news cycle of a possible cinema boycott in the UK and the US may have kept Alice in the news in the weeks running up to the film’s release yesterday, but the reports coming out of the US this morning of the film’s huge box office projections must be music to Disney’s big ears.
We’ve been all over Alice in the last few months and you can see our coverage here, but nothing we saw indicated that Tim Burton’s dark, adapted Alice would do so well.
Variety are putting the box office take so far at $30 million and Deadline Hollywood have $41 milion as the figure, with both predicting a $100 million weekend result. Such a strong opening will have several consequences, not least it will add weight to the 3D advocates, as a post production conversion into the third dimension must have made a difference to the takings. Maybe people are hungry for another 3D offering after Avatar, or maybe it’s the combined forces of Disney and Burton fans racing to see how this film turned out.
Whatever happens in the next few days this is a dream start for the film, and it will be interesting to see if this trend continues here in the UK. Also the drop off may be severe next week but this will not be too worrisome for Disney as the DVD will be out soon anyway…
