“Oz the Great and Powerful” Debuts On A High Note

“Oz the Great and Powerful” Debuts On A High Note

The weekend box office saw “Oz the Great and Powerful” debuting with $80.3 million in Canada and the US, according to estimates by the studio. The 3D prequel of Disney to the classic tale of L. Frank Baum earned $69.9 million in the overseas market.

The movie tells the story of the origin of the wizard, who is played by James Franco, Michelle Williams, Rachel Weisz and Mila Kunis play the role of witches who met the wizard when he entered the realm of Oz.

“Oz the Great and Powerful” is directed by Sam Raimi, the same director behind the original “Spiderman” trilogy. It was a risk that Disney took and it appears that it will pay off. It cost the studio around $200 million to produce and comes a week after “Jack the Giant Slayer” flopped during its opening weekend as its box office earnings were limited to $28 million.

The “Oz” movie also performed well in 46 foreign markets, earning around $69.9 million. The movie may duplicate the feat of “Alice the Wonderland” which was a costly 3D Disney movie that earned over $1 billion in overall ticket sales.

According to box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian, “Oz the Great and Powerful” may bring the industry back on track after six straight weekends with low box office results. This resulted to a deficit of 12.5 percent in revenues in the same period last year.

“Jack the Giant Slayer” was able to place second as it earned $10 million, which is a 62 percent decline in the revenue it earned a week ago.

In third place was “Identity Thief”, which earned $6.3 million at the box office. “Dead Man Down” placed fourth with $5.3 million, which is less than ten percent of what “Oz the Great and Powerful” earned in overseas ticket sales.

Posted by Kade Quinn on Monday March 11 2013, 1:04 PM EDT. Ref: Fox News. Link. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Entertainment, Featured News. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0