'Alice in Wonderland' enchants North American box office

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Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" broke through the looking glass all the way to the top of the North American box office chart this weekend with a whopping 112 million dollars in takings, according estimates.

The live-action, CGI (computer generated imagery), 3D version of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson's classic fantasy tale starring Johnny Depp and Australian Mia Wasikowska has become the highest grossing film released on a weekend in the January-March period.

The seventh Burton-Depp collaboration ended Martin Scorsese's two-week reign at the top of the box office with "Shutter Island," which took second place with 13 million dollars, according to preliminary data from box office tracker Exhibitor Relations.

Crime drama "Brooklyn's Finest," starring Richard Gere, Ethan Hawke and Don Cheadle as three burnt-out cops transformed by the same violent assignment opened in third place with 12 million dollars.

The Bruce Willis action comedy "Cop Out" fell from second to fourth in its second weekend, raking in nine million dollars.

Fifth place went to "The Crazies," about the military's containment of a man-made virus that causes permanent insanity and death. The film took 7.0 million dollars in its second weekend.

Falling two spots to sixth place but still raking in millions, was science-fiction epic "Avatar," the highest-grossing film of all time with more than two billion dollars worldwide to date.

In its 12th week on North American release, Canadian James Cameron's film made another 7.0 million dollars.

The Oscar-nominated movie was followed by mythological adventure-fantasy "Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief," based on Rick Riordan's book and starring Pierce Brosnan and Uma Thurman. The movie earned five million dollars in its fourth week.

Romantic ensemble "Valentine's Day," starring Julia Roberts, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Biel, Jennifer Garner and Jessica Alba amongst others scooped 4.3 million dollars in its fourth week for eighth place.

Ninth place with 3.5 million dollars went to "Crazy Heart," a low-budget drama about a washed-up country singer struggling to rebuild his career, starring Jeff Bridges in the Oscar-nominated lead role.

Romantic tearjerker "Dear John," an adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks novel, took tenth place with three million dollars in its fifth week.