Huge Opening Day for Alice In Wonderland

Showing just how much impact 3D can have on an already high interest film, Alice in Wonderland opened to a massive $41 million on Friday. That puts it on track for a weekend take of around $115 million. The Oscars could slightly impact its Sunday gross.

With this the film has broken the record for the biggest opening day for a non-sequel and now has the second biggest opening day of all-time behind only Twilight: New Moon. Blowing by the expectations that pegged it in the $60-70 range, Alice will now own the record for the biggest March opening in history. That has been held by 300 which opened with $71 million back in 2007.

Even with the mixed reviews and uncertain word of mouth the long term prospects for Alice are decent given its appeal to all demos, however it has only three weeks in the theater until it loses many of its 3D screens to How to Train Your Dragon. It will also be very interesting to monitor the reaction to the 3D for Alice, which has been noted to be lackluster. There could be some backlash from people who had expected the “Avatar experience”.