The Wrap‘s Daniel Frankel is reporting that Tim Burton‘s 3-D Alice in Wonderland took in $39.4 million yesterday, and that it will probably wind up with nearly $110 million by Sunday night, according to studio estimates.
Frankel notes that Disney officials “were reluctant to predict even a $70 million opening going into the weekend,” but that’s standard politics — you always predict a number that’s lower than what you think your film will really gross.
Alice is playing in 3,728 theaters, including 188 IMAX 3D showings. Alice‘s weekend tally will easily top Avatar‘s first-weekend earnings of $77 million. Well and good for Disney, except there’s a problem. The problem is that for many if not most discerning moviegoers, Alice in Wonderland is a problem.
Not that a film having such a reputation has ever given a single moment’s pause to the American middle-class when they want to see something. All they know or care about is that Alice is (a) fancifully visual, (b) kid-friendly, (c) 3-D eye-candy and (d) IMAXed. That’s all they information that they’re capable of processing. Make that two tubs of whale-fat popcorn and three…no, four gallon-sized containers of sugar-bombed Coca Cola with tons of ice.