Movies With Butter

This weekend’s box office turnout yielded a bit of a surprise for this last week’s new releases—whether or not this was a good surprise certainly depends on who you ask.

What didn’t come as a surprise was the continued success of Oz: The Great and Powerful, which earned another $42.2 million over the weekend, for a tidy sum of $145 million so far.

That’s about the end of predictability for this weekend’s charts, as the second-highest revenues went to The Call, which earned $17.1 million. Not only is this somewhat at odds with its lukewarm critical reviews prior to its release, but it managed to make a respectable $5 million above the top of its projected gross range.

The box office wasn’t quite as kind to last week’s other release, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, which earned only $10.3 million, falling about $6 million short of its predicted earnings bracket. Apparently, no amount of magical hilarity could redeem the film of its shortcomings.

The fourth-highest gross went to Jack the Giant Slayer, which made another $6.2 million for a total of $53.9 million. Below that is a holdout of several weeks—even months, by now—that refuses to quit: Identity Thief continues to cling to the upper echelons of the charts, making $4.5 million this weekend for an impressive total of $123.7 million (numbers, as always, from Box Office Mojo.

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