Friday Report: 'Oz' on Top, 'Call' Beats 'Burt'
As expected, Oz The Great and Powerful held on to first place on Friday by a wide margin. The more interesting story, though, was what happened with the newcomers: The Call got off to a surprisingly strong start, while The Incredible Burt Wonderstone bombed.

Oz added an estimated $11.4 million yesterday, which is off 53 percent from opening day. That looks like a steep drop, but it is noticeably better than Alice in Wonderland's 58 percent decline at the same point in 2010. Still, Oz's $114.2 million is nearly $50 million less than Alice's eight-day total. For the three-day weekend, Oz should wind up earning just over $40 million.

In second place, The Call exceeded most expectations with an estimated $6.2 million from 2,507 locations. Among Halle Berry thrillers, that's a drastic improvement over Perfect Stranger ($3.9 million), though it's a tad below Gothika ($6.7 million), which opened a full decade ago. For the weekend, the movie will absolutely open above $15 million, and could go as high as $18 million.

Meanwhile, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone debuted to an awful $3.72 million at 3,160 locations. That's one of the worst starts ever for stars Steve Carell and Jim Carrey, and is a tiny fraction of comparable movie Blades of Glory's $12.4 million opening. The movie will likely earn over $10 million this weekend, though not by much.

In fourth place, Jack the Giant Slayer eased 31 percent to an estimated $1.75 million. While that's a great hold, it's also too little, too late: the movie has only earned $49.4 million so far, and it would still be lucky to reach $65 million by the end of its run.

Identity Thief rounded out the Top Five with an estimated $1.4 million, which is off a light 22 percent from last Friday. That gross helped push the movie's total to $120.6 million, which makes it director Seth Gordon's highest-grossing movie ever ahead of Four Christmases ($120.1 million).

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Grosses for Friday, March 15, 2013