There were a lot of winners at the weekend box office: Johnny Depp, Jennifer Aniston, Ben Stiller, and put-upon sixth-graders.
And then there were Jude Law and put-upon Twilight stars.
First things first: Depp's Alice in Wonderland scored its third straight win, and upped its domestic total to a wondrous $265.8 million.
As for seconds…
That place in the standings went, surprisingly, to the $15 million middle-school comedy Diary of a Wimpy Kid, which blew past expectations with a $21.8 million Friday-Sunday debut, per studio estimates.
Aniston's source for the is-she-or-isn't-she-dating-Gerard Butler storyline, The Bounty Hunter, did as expected, except for the part about opening in third. The $40 millionish comedy got off to a good $21 million start, a box office return to form for Aniston after last year's Love Happens and Management.
Stiller looked his blockbuster self even with the limited-release debut of the indie comedy Greenberg, which averaged a huge $40,144 at each of its three theaters for a $120,432 debut.
The other high-profile art-house debut, The Runaways, wasn't nearly as showy. The Kristen Stewart-Dakota Fanning rock biopic grossed $803,629 at 244 theaters, for a so-so $3,294 screen average, even lower than what Stewart's Twilight compatriot, Pattinson, managed last weekend with Remember Me's own so-so debut.
The Runaways is slated to go wide next month. If the low-budget movie is to make good on its low budget, pegged at under $10 million, then it may have to start playing to people who are closer in age to the teenage Stewart and Fanning. Opening weekend saw The Runaways play mostly to the 25 and older crowd, with Apparition CEO Bob Berney saying the R rating for his studio's film may have kept younger moviegoers away.
Then again, the film about a 1970s cult band may be destinted for a cult following. "It's definitely a niche-oriented film," Hollywood.com box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian said last week. "This isn't like Ray."
If the start of Stewart's beyond-Twilight career didn't rock, then the second weekend of Pattinson's rolled—as in, downhill. In its second weekend, Remember Me slid to 10th place, with only $3.3 million. Still, the $16 million film moved closer to its ostensive break-even point domestically, with $13.9 million overall.
Law's $30 millionish organ-repossession flick, Repo Men, costarring Forest Whitaker, flat out tanked, grossing just $6.2 million in wide release.
Kevin Smith's Cop Out ($1.4 million) pooped out after a three-weekend run in the Top 10. With $42.6 million in the domestic bank, it's the biggest-grossing comedy of Smith's career.
Here's a complete rundown of the weekend's top-grossing films Friday-Sunday, per estimates compiled by Exhibitor Relations:
- Alice in Wonderland, $34.5 million
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid, $21.8 million
- The Bounty Hunter, $21 million
- Repo Men, $6.2 million
- She's Out of My League, $6 million
- Green Zone, $5.96 million
- Shutter Island, $4.8 million
- Avatar, $4 million
- Our Family Wedding, $3.8 million
- Remember Me, $3.3 million
(Originally published March 21, 2010, at 10:17 a.m. PT)
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Check out all the weekend's films in our Totally New Releases gallery.