As much as it deserves to be labeled a game-changer and trendsetter in its own way more than a decade removed from its release, not a single soul could have predicted that Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland would end up soaring past the billion-dollar mark at the box office during its theatrical run.
Then again, it was the first high-profile 3D blockbuster to arrive since James Cameron’s Avatar had torn the history books a new one three months previously, which also goes some way to explaining why the dismal Clash of the Titans remake managed to earn $500 million despite boasting one of the worst post-conversions you’ll ever see.
Burton’s reimagining of the classic fairytale also marked the first animated Disney classic to be given the live-action treatment since sequel 102 Dalmatians a decade previously, and what was viewed as a novelty at the time quickly became commonplace as the Mouse House realized it was sitting on an untapped goldmine. To put things into perspective, in the 10 years after Alice in Wonderland, no less than 12 such titles thundered into the multiplex.
The fantastical frolic through the looking glass wasn’t particularly good, either, with respective Rotten Tomatoes scores of 51 and 55 percent hardly befitting what was the fifth highest-grossing film in the history of cinema at the time, and it still ranks as one of the worst-reviewed billion-dollar smash hits there’s ever been.
It did at least fare substantially better than its ill-fated sequel, while FlixPatrol revealing it as one of the most-watched titles on the iTunes worldwide watch-list this week indicates that at-home audiences are still willing to give it a whirl when it tickles their fancy, regardless of its less-than-stellar reputation.