'Oz,' 'The Call' and 'Spring Breakers' stand out in mixed weekend

In a surprise reversal, underdog The Call outperformed The Incredible Burt Wonderstone this weekend. The Call was expected to finish in the low teens, but instead placed second with $17.1 million. The Halle Berry/Abigail Breslin thriller played a bit like a female Taken. 61% of attendees
were female, and more than half were over 30. It probably won't come anywhere near the Liam Neeson-led kidnapping film's total, but in a market that has been dominated by R-rated thrillers with male leads, a female-led suspenser was a breath of fresh air.

Despite the presence of Steve Carell and Jim Carrey, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone fell flat, opening to $10.3 million. It's hard to tell exactly why this comedy didn't resonate with audiences, but it's worth noting that Carell appeared to play
against type. His over-the-top blond bouffant hairdo made him seem like a cocky magician, when Carell normally plays shy, nervous hangdog types. Could that explain the tepid reception?

Above the new releases, Oz the Great and Powerful enjoyed a second week at the top. A dip of just 46% made for a total of $42.2 million. The CG-heavy fantasy could earn $250 million domestically at this pace.

Former Disney stars in bikinis + James Franco with cornrows and a grille turned out to be a magic formula for Spring Breakers. While debuting in just 3 locations, it racked up a $90,000 per-screen average. These stunning figures are usually reserved for the first week of arthouse-to-mainstream successes like Lincoln ($85,000
per-screen debut weekend) or Zero Dark Thirty ($83,000 per screen opening weekend).  Next week, Spring Breakers will expand to over 1,000 locations, and theatres should be ready for young crowds that may mimic those showing up to MTV's spring break.

A24, the distributor behind Spring Breakers, debuted another release the same weekend. Ginger & Rosa, a coming-of-age tale starring Alice Englert and Elle Fanning, averaged $15,000 per screen in 3 locations. Though considerably less than Spring Breakers, the per-screen average is in the "healthy shot of success" range.

This Friday, Tina Fey plays an uptight admissions officer in Admission, The Croods adds family entertainment to the mix, and the fate of the President is in the balance in Olympus Has Fallen.

 

'Burt Wonderstone' goes up against second week of 'Oz'

One thing's certain this weekend: Oz the Great and Powerful will place first for the second week in a row. The special effects fantasy should drop a bit less than 50% and earn in the mid-$40 millions. While it's not quite as strong as Disney's 2010 fantasy Alice in Wonderland, the studio did a pretty good job of replicating that successful formula.

Steve Carell and Jim Carrey play rival magicians in The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (3,160 theatres). The last time the comedy duo starred together, Carell was the up-and-comer and Carrey was the big draw. Now, Carell's the big comedy star and Carrey's the one playing second fiddle. The "consistently entertaining diversion" benefits from "a gifted cast that puts a fresh spin on even the most
tried-and-true crowd-pleaser plot developments,"declares FJI critic Michael Sauter. The comedy should approach $20 million. Maybe the success of Identity Thief has put audiences in a good mood and brightened the market for comedies.

Halle Berry plays a 911 operator who gets a call from a girl (Abigail Breslin) who has been kidnapped and confined to a car trunk in The Call (2,507 theatres). Although the thriller is "sometimes straightforward and familiar," notes critic Doris Toumarkine, " it
effectively
revs up audiences and gets them cheering for the good
guys." It's possible the thriller will play like the female version of Taken, and resonate with older female moviegoers.

Reactions to Spring Breakers (3 theatres) have been extreme. Some are focusing on its provenance, from auteur Harmony Korine, but FJI critic David Noh sees the bikini-filled picture as just a "commercial wannabe that still suffers from art-house pretensions." He found the "wild and wooly update of Where
the Boys Are" to be "scarily, snarkily
representative of a generation," which made  him "want to weep for the future." New York's David Edelstein mused that it might be "among the perviest movies ever made — although by spelling out
why, I fear I’ll only make some people want to see it more." Not many raunchy R-rated teen movies elicit such detailed takedowns, so it's fair to say this one is (probably purposely) aggressively offensive.

On Monday, we'll see if The Incredible Burt Wonderstone provided a light comedic counterpoint to the March behemoth Oz the Great and Powerful, and if Spring Breakers proved that sex sells.