Weekend Box Office: Disney closer to affording real-life Emerald City
There was reason for Disney to feel some anxiety going into the opening weekend of Oz The Great And Powerful: Box office to this point in 2013 has been dismal, with the mediocre Melissa McCarthy comedy Identity Thief the only true breakout hit; another $200 million fantasy, Jack And The Giant Slayer, had tanked badly the weekend before; and reviews of the film have been largely unkind and of the blood-in-the-water variety. But $80.2 million later—and another $70 million overseas—the company brass could celebrate, perhaps by treating themselves to a wild four-day learning bender at Epcot Center. (Poor Jack And The Giant Slayer, competing for the same family audience, dropped an astonishing 63%, putting it on pace to flop worse than John Carter.) Meanwhile, the poorly received Colin Ferrell/Noomi Rapace thriller Dead Man Down, from the director of the Swedish The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, sputtered into four place on opening weekend with just $5.35 million in receipts.