Oz The Great and Powerful Box Office Prediction

I normally wait until Wednesday to make my box office predictions for the upcoming weekend. While I have no intention of changing that practice, I will from time to time make an early prediction under special circumstances.

This coming weekend provides such a circumstance. In short, when an especially eagerly awaited release is set to debut, my projection will come a little earlier. I’m doing this for one main reason: I don’t want to be influenced by the inevitable flurry of articles likely to appear during the week pontificating on how Oz the Great and Powerful
will perform this weekend. I choose to pontificate first (especially due to the extreme lack of pontificating going on generally around the world at the moment).

I would expect to see similar early posts over the coming months on titles such as Iron Man 3, Man of Steel, and The Lone Ranger, among others.

However, we begin with what is unquestionably the biggest release of 2013 so far: Sam Raimi’s Oz the Great and Powerful. The prequel to one of the most beloved movies of all time stars James Franco, Michelle Williams, Rachel Weisz, and Mila Kunis.

Disney has gone all out marketing the film and raising its profile over the last several months, complete with a Super Bowl spot and constantly running ads on TV. The total budget, including the hefty marketing campaign, reportedly tops out at $325 million dollars. With that kind of money behind it, anything less than a smash hit will be considered a major letdown.

With its second weekend of March release date, it’s no secret Disney is attempting to replicate the success of another one of their titles released the same weekend three years ago: Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, starring Johnny Depp. Watching the Oz trailers, it’s certainly marketed with the same vibe as the aforementioned mega-blockbuster. Wonderland currently stands as having the 14th biggest opening ever with $116.1 million. Disney would be over the moon to see those kinds of numbers for Oz.

I’m not so sure. First off, if Oz grosses over $100 million this weekend, mission accomplished for Disney. While the two titles are alike in many ways, Wonderland had the added benefit of having one of the biggest movie stars on the planet with their name above the title. There was probably a fair amount of moviegoers who went to see it simply because Depp was in it. Oz does not have that luxury. It’s filled with well-known actors, but none of them are box office draws. It’s worth noting that Robert Downey Jr. considered headlining the film at one point, but declined. His participation would have likely increased my estimate for Oz considerably, to the tune of an additional $15-$20 million dollars.

Sam Raimi’s film does have the name recognition thing going for it, though. It’s hard to find anyone who hasn’t seen (and loved) 1939’s The Wizard of Oz, a movie that picks up fans with every passing generation. It is certainly the main selling point here.

So far, reviews are mixed. That’s good enough. In many ways, Oz is critic-proof and its performance could only be hurt if it was savaged by critics. That does not appear to be the case whatsoever.

A more fair comparison for what Oz accomplishes this weekend may just be a film from the very recent past, Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. That, too, had a built-in audience eager to see it. It also received mixed reviews. And frankly, its box office performance in its inaugural weekend seems more likely to resemble what Oz will do. The Hobbit earned an $84.6 million opening in December.

Director Sam Raimi is certainly no stranger to blockbuster releases. He directed the Tobey Maguire Spiderman trilogy. The first film in that series debuted in 2002 to the best opening of all time (it now stands at #15, right behind Alice in Wonderland).

The flexibility as to what Oz grosses is pretty wide. Anything below $75 million will be seen as low, no matter how Disney spins it. Anything above $100 million would be a bit surprising and certainly amazing news for the Mouse Factory. My estimate puts it slightly above Hobbit territory:

Final Prediction

Oz the Great and Powerful: $87.4 million opening weekend

That prediction would give Oz the 33rd largest opening ever, in between Spiderman 2 and Fast Five. That number would likely be seen as a very solid opening, but how it holds up in subsequent weekends remains to be seen. If I had to further estimate, I’d say its chances of making more than my prediction is greater than its chances of making less, even though something in the low to middle 80s is quite possible. I don’t see it going below $75 million, but we’ll see.

On Wednesday, I will be back with my full predictions for the weekend’s Top Five. Special openings call for special blog posts and I wanted to get the Oz projection out now. Stay tuned!