A plethora of new releases this past weekend, although none of them quite as large as Alice in Wonderland. The highest theater count for any of the wide bows was 3,077, compared to the 3,739 screens Alice is still playing on. That former number went to Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Hotel for Dogs director Thor Freudenthal’s adaptation of Jeff Kinney’s best-selling novel, with $21.8 million in second place. This surely did better than Dogs did opening weekend, which managed $17 million on 194 additional screens. The flick didn’t do so well with critics, though. Wimpy Kid holds a 52% rotten rating on Rotten Tomatoes as of this writing. Still, I believe this has the strongest holding power out of any new faces in the top five. Hell, I’d like to see it.

A few hundred thousand dollars away lay the Gerard Butler/Jennifer Aniston romantic comedy vehicle The Bounty Hunter at #3. Starting off with $21 million, it almost stands with director Andy Tennant’s previous film Fool’s Gold, which came out at #1 with $21.6 million two years ago. It doesn’t hold a candle to Hitch’s opening of $43.1 million in 2005, which promotion advertised Bounty Hunter as being similar to. The last wide release Repo Men, starring Jude Law and Forest Whitaker as members of a futuristic agency that repossess artificial organs, began with $6.2 million in fourth. What an extreme disappointment for Universal. It only cost $32 million to fund, though I don’t see it even making that back anytime soon.

She’s Out of My League, the Jay Baruchel-headlining comedy about a geek who meets the hottie of his dreams, finishes the top five with $6 million. Its domestic gross is up to $19.5 million in ten days.

Out of the top five-

• Floria Sigismondi’s biopic of Joan Jett’s ‘70s all-girl rock band The Runaways premiered with a respectable $803,000 on 244 screens.
• IMAX Spectacle Hubble 3D, narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio, opened with $453,000 on 39 screens.
• Writer-director Noah Baumbach’s Greenberg, starring Ben Stiller, failed to live up to Baumbach’s 2005 indie hit The Squid and the Whale’s debut of $129,834, starting off with $120,000 on only three screens.
• Raymond De Felitta’s festival flick dramedy City Island began with $35,000 on two screens.

Here are the box office results according to studio estimates Sunday-

1. 1. Alice in Wonderland (2010)…$34.5 million
2. 2. Diary of a Wimpy Kid…$21.8 million
3. 3. The Bounty Hunter…$21 million
4. 4. Repo Men…$6.2 million
5. 5. She’s Out of My League…$6 million
6. 6. Green Zone…$6 million
7. 7. Shutter Island…$4.8 million
8. 8. Avatar…$4 million
9. 9. Our Family Wedding…$3.8 million
10. 10. Remember Me…$3.3 million

Paul Greengrass’s Bourne-style action/thriller Green Zone won $14.5 million in its bow. The flick, about a U.S. Army badge (Matt Damon) seeking to uncover dangerous weaponry in central Baghdad, was unable to heighten the director’s filmography any. He and Damon couldn’t top their previous collaboration The Bourne Ultimatum’s opening haul of $69.3 million in 2007. Green Zone failed to perform well with critics either, holding a 48% rotten rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Commentators claimed a lackluster screenplay by Brian Helgeland and unconvincing characters were what brought the movie down. This is Greengrass’s second lowest opening.

Jim Field Smith’s comedy She’s Out of My League, starring Apatow late-bloomer Jay Baruchel, cooped up at #3 with $9.6 million. It may not rank with the debut grosses of some of Baruchel’s previous flicks; however considering what it was up against I wouldn’t say this was a particularly bad start for the nerd-centric laugher. The movie’s poor campaign might be to blame when League surely slips out of the top ten rather quickly, but I do suggest you check it out sometime on DVD. Allen Coulter’s launch from TV to the big screen with Remember Me, starring Robert Pattinson of Twilight fame, came off as self-indulgent to most critics, but the title star helped Coulter’s pre-9/11 romance earned $8.3 million in fourth place at the box office this weekend.

Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island closes the head five with another $8.1 million, noting a 38.5% drop. The thriller’s total is up to $108.8 million in four weeks.

Out of the top five-

• The movie most everyone wasn’t laughing at, Rick Famuyiwa’s Our Family Wedding began its trot with $7.6 million behind Shutter Island. Expect this racial disaster to easily slide off the charts and soon from the face of the Earth.
• Bong Joon-ho’s Mother made $36,000 on six screens showing only in New York and Los Angeles. Not even close to Joon-ho’s successor The Host’s start-up of $314,488, Mother saw a $6,000 per-screen-average, a luxury Host couldn’t obtain.
• Bradley Rust Gray’s The Exploding Girl, about an epileptic woman trying to balance love and friendship, opened with $6,000 on a single screen in its States debut.

Here are the box office results according to studio estimates Sunday-

1. 1. Alice in Wonderland (2010)…$62 million
2. 2. Green Zone…$14.5 million
3. 3. She’s Out of My League…$9.6 million
4. 4. Remember Me…$8.3 million
5. 5. Shutter Island…$8.1 million
6. 6. Out Family Wedding…$7.6 million
7. 7. Avatar…$6.6 million
8. 8. Brooklyn’s Finest…$4.3 million
9. 9. Cop Out…$4.2 million
10. 10. The Crazies (2010)…$3.7 million

Tim Burton’s trippy live-action take on Lewis Carroll’s classic novels, Alice in Wonderland, premiered at #1 with a record-breaking $116.3 million domestic, $210.3 million worldwide gross. In addition to far surpassing director Burton’s previous weekend all-time grosser, 2005’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Wonderland became the biggest opening of all time for a non-sequel movie in the States. Converted to 3D after being filmed in 2D, the movie made 70% of its killings from the red-and-blue glasses. Showing on 3,728 screens, Friday’s intake was a whopping $41 million. Nowhere near the $35 million three-day overall I was predicting. Wonderland is over halfway to making back the $200 million budget Disney gave Burton to make it. However this unsettled many critics (including yours truly) as well. The majority claimed the 2010 imagining boosted style over substance.

In a land outside of your local Alice screenings, Antoine Fuqua’s (Training Day) latest Brooklyn’s Finest, first debuting at the Sundance Film Festival over a year ago, opened to mostly dismissal reviews, earning a 36% on Rotten Tomatoes. The gritty cop drama, following the lives of three New York police officers during a week-long drug affair, started off with $13.5 million. The lowest debut for a Fuqua picture, Brooklyn’s Finest may have only been placed in a bad weekend. I mean between a coked-up cop thriller and a coked-up Disney movie, which would you pick to see?

Shutter Island dropped two spots and 41.3% to third place, bringing in another $13.3 million. Martin Scorsese’s mind-bender has a total of $95.8 million in three weeks. Kevin Smith’s Cop Out, a movie no one I know has seen yet has still managed to nab a spot in the top five two weekends in a row, grossed $9.1 million, falling 49.8% from last Sunday’s tally. James Cameron’s Avatar closes us out with $7.7 million at #5, a domestic haul of $720.2 million in 12 weeks.

Out of the top five-

• Oscar-nominated animated feature The Secret of Kells debuted with $40,000 on one screen.

Here are the box office results according to studio estimates Sunday-

1. 1. Alice in Wonderland (2010)…$116.3 million
2. 2. Brooklyn’s Finest…$13.5 million
3. 3. Shutter Island…$13.3 million
4. 4. Cop Out…$9.1 million
5. 5. Avatar…$7.7 million
6. 6. The Crazies (2010)…$7 million
7. 7. Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief…$5.1 million
8. 8. Valentine’s Day…$4.3 million
9. 9. Crazy Heart…$3.4 million
10. 10. Dear John…$2.9 million

3/5 stars.

Watch my full review of Alice in Wonderland here!