But even before the journey begins, the journalist’s 10-year-old son has joked that she’s decided to fall in love with James, and her behavior around him is oddly imperious and demanding. When a cafe proprietor in some picturesque village makes the obvious assumption — that she and James are married — Binoche’s character pounces on it: It’s been 15 years, my husband works all the time, I never see him, we fight a lot. James returns from making a phone call to persons unknown (perhaps his real wife or girlfriend) and gradually gets dragged into the game. As the pair continue their odyssey through a Tuscan afternoon, sparring like a couple who really have been together 15 years, the movie’s real question comes into focus: How does a forgery or copy of a relationship compare with the so-called real thing?

On one level, “Certified Copy” is exactly what it looks like — an elegant, wistful and picturesque tale of two ships passing in the Tuscan sunlight, somewhat in the mode of “Before Sunrise” or “Cairo Time.” It’s by far the most audience-friendly movie of Kiarostami’s career, and the first one that’s likely to draw numerous Western viewers who’ve never heard of him and never seen an Iranian movie. But you could also call it, well, a clever copy of that kind of film, with lots of other things going on under the surface. This story bristles with ideas and intelligence, and offers tremendous emotional highs and lows; the longer you stick with it, the more mysterious it gets. Ultimately, Kiarostami isn’t just inquiring into the nature of love, marriage and relationships, he’s probing the porous boundary between stories and reality.

When I met Binoche a few months ago in her Manhattan hotel room (around the time that “Certified Copy” premiered at the New York Film Festival), she explained that the film was the end result of a circuitous collaboration with Kiarostami. Even in the rarefied world of upscale French cinema, built around a tradition of ethereal, untouchable screen goddesses, the woman known to the Parisian media as La Binoche is a special case. She has certainly appeared in Hollywood movies — her only Oscar came for “The English Patient” in 1997, and she was nominated again opposite Johnny Depp in the schmaltzy 2000 “Chocolat” — but she has said no far more often than yes.

Beginning with her breakthrough performance in Philip Kaufman’s “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” in 1988, Binoche has spent most of her career making high-prestige art films with adventurous directors, with little or no regard for their commercial potential. Cinephiles around the world will never forget her magnetic leading performances in the late Krzysztof Kieslowski’s “Three Colors” trilogy, but she’s also worked with Jean-Luc Godard (“Hail Mary”), Patrice Leconte (“The Widow of Saint-Pierre”), Leos Carax (“The Lovers on the Bridge”), Michael Haneke (“Caché”), Hou Hsiao-hsien (“The Flight of the Red Balloon”), Amos Gitai (“Disengagement”) and Olivier Assayas (“Summer Hours”). She recently finished shooting American director Dito Montiel’s thriller “The Son of No One,” is developing a new film with Assayas, and has reportedly been cast in David Cronenberg’s adaptation of Don DeLillo’s “Cosmopolis.”)

What strikes you most about Binoche in person — after you get used to sitting in the same living room with Juliette Binoche, that is — is how sincere and earnest, even how vulnerable, she is. I don’t mean that we became terrific friends in a 20-minute conversation. She is French, after all, which implies a degree of formality that’s roughly 250 percent of the American norm. But Binoche, looking handsome and almost fragile in a tailored black pantsuit, gives off no hint of bogus pretension or of the diffident, superior boredom that emanates from other French movie stars. (You can probably guess who I’m talking about.) She listens carefully, laughs often and occasionally grabs hold of the conversation with the same ferocious intensity she brings to the screen.

I get the impression that making “Certified Copy” was the end of a long process between you and Kiarostami. How did it begin?

It was in the air when I met him several times in different places, at [screenwriter and producer] Jean-Claude Carrière’s place and at the Cannes festival. Then I did an interview with him. I filmed him, and at the end of the interview he said, “This interview was a really bad idea, but come to Iran.” [Laughter.] I said, “OK, OK, fine, maybe I’ll come.” About a year later, I really started to think about it. I thought I would love to know what was really going on there, after reading about all the Iranian bad people, you know, and all the politics. It turned out that I could get a visa. I was very surprised that I could get there. And I really discovered a completely different country than I imagined, than I was reading about in the media.

I’ve heard that from other people too. But what do you mean, exactly?

The joy inside the houses! They’re very much like Italians. They love life, they enjoy life, they’re full of culture. They have a great sense of themselves. And, you know, that area is, how do you say it? The curdle of civilization?

The cradle.

Yes, the cradle of civilization. They’re very aware of the power of their poetry, of their artistic strength and awareness. So discovering that was really — you know, we describe them as these retarded, ancient men who want to control women. And, hello? That happened quite a while ago, everywhere in the world. [Laughter.] Of course I’m against it, the veil thing, but it takes time for men to be aware. Of, you know, their fear, which is bringing more fear.

Well, since you mention the veil, I have to ask you about the recent law in France, which forbids Islamic women from wearing it in many public situations. How do you feel about that?

You know, we come from a different history. The revolution in France really places things on a different scale. The fact that the French policy really comes out of the revolution, the idea that everybody has to be the same — égalité, fraternité, liberté — which is, between us, a whole debate. From an outside point of view, it’s very hard to understand that. It’s not about pushing Muslims away from their beliefs. It’s like, everybody’s the same, and if you’re going in the swimming pool, you’ve got to be the same as the others. If you put yourself in the swimming pool completely covered, that puts that kid away from the others, away from the group.

Yeah, we have a more pluralistic tradition in the United States, although it’s safe to say that’s in question right now too. OK, so you went to Iran with him. Then what happened?

There was a sort of quid pro quo. When I arrived at the airport in Tehran, there were photographers and video cameras everywhere, and I was shocked: Wow, why did Abbas do that? Meanwhile, he was thinking: Wow, why did Juliette do that? We didn’t expect that. What happened was that there was a journalist on the plane who saw me and phoned some friends, and then it spread out, and the next day there were stories on the front page of the newspaper: Abbas and Juliette have a film together! Abbas was in trouble, because he thought: I have no film with you, and if the government is unhappy with that, I might be in difficulty. So I had to do tons of interviews the next day and the following day, saying, “We have no project! We have no film together!”

After two days of doing that, he started telling me this story about going to Tuscany with this lady who drove him around and started talking to him as if he was her husband. He gave me so many details! I was just taken aback by the story and how fascinating it was. He could see that, and as I was listening he was making up the story, I think. At the end of it, he said, “Do you believe me?” and I said yes. And he said, “No, it’s not true. It didn’t happen.” Of course I laughed, and I laughed for several days after that. I couldn’t believe he made me play along, emotionally, like this. After that it still took a while, but he said to me: “Find a producer, and we’ll make the film.”

This was the first time he’s made a film in the West. Was that a big adjustment for him, as you saw it?

I think the fact that we made it in Italy was better for him, because it feels closer to his own country in many ways. He had already done workshops in Italy and made a short film there, so there was already a space for him to work in Italy. He felt kind of comfortable there. It might have been more difficult somewhere else, but now I think he’s ready for that. His next project’s going to take place in Japan, because it’s become very difficult for him to work in his own country.

Yes, it’s a strange situation. He’s easily the most internationally famous Iranian director, and he can’t really make films there. But tell me about working with William Shimell, who had never acted in a film before. Because most of the film is just the two of you, which is a lot of pressure on a newcomer!

Yeah, I could see that it was very difficult sometimes, almost like vertigo for him. You jump into that space, and there’s a lot of tension that comes with that. You have to be precise and be free at the same time. How do you combine those two worlds? After a while, I’d say after two weeks, I really saw him differently. I wanted to make sure he was fine, and not panicking too much! We filmed chronologically, and you see him grow as well, as the story moves along.

It’s interesting, I think this lady is telling him so many things. She’s telling him off, she’s pushy, she’s needy, all of that. He’s, like, subdued most of the time, he doesn’t answer back that well. He’s wondering what kind of situation he’s in. There’s something parallel between what William went through and what the character goes through.

This is a movie about people who have just met who start to pretend that they know each other well. You might call it a fiction about pretending, or a film where actors play people who are acting.

Well, as for me, it had to be always true. That’s a big theme we went through, Abbas and myself. He said to me: “Actors! They fake all the time! They don’t live emotion, it’s not true. Even though they cry, they cry for the film. It’s not like life, when you’re in real pain.” I said: “No, Abbas. You’re really recreating life and you’re really feeling the pain. It’s not technical, it’s heartfelt.” I could see that he didn’t agree, and it really didn’t matter to me, because he doesn’t know. So why do I need to battle? I didn’t want to go through big discussions about it. So I just smiled and thought, we’ll see.

Actually, I think what he discovered through the shoot was how emotional it was. I don’t think he expected that. Most of the time, the way he edits a film, it’s quite flat until the end, when the emotion comes in through the construction of the story. The story gives the emotion, not the actors going up and down and revealing their inside worlds. But as we made this one, we discovered that emotion could also give the film a shape in a different way. Theme-wise, this was wonderful. Between the man and the woman, the woman is exposing herself emotionally and the man is more controlling and thoughtful. But it’s also interesting that the woman in the film is Abbas as well. He raised his children on his own, and he knows what that’s like. So he never separated himself from her.

We only know one of the characters’ names, and we don’t know anything about their past. I mean, she’s got a child, so there’s that, obviously. But there’s almost nothing else.

I think for Abbas it was like Adam and Eve. You don’t know about Adam’s past, or Eve’s past. They are newly created.

You know, when the film premiered at Cannes, some people actually thought that there was a reality shift at some point. Maybe they actually are married, and either they’re pretending not to be at first or we’ve, I don’t know, gone from one universe into another. I don’t see it that way, but it’s an intriguing idea.

Yeah, and Abbas leaves it that way, which I like. It’s not about that — it’s not about choosing a side, whether they’re married or not married. It’s about the inside world, where you can imagine being married to someone you just met. So we’re more in that world, where she takes what’s inside her as real. Whether it’s true or not true, a copy, a reality, an original — that doesn’t matter in the end. It’s like: Can you see me? Can you hear me? Can you love me?

Talk about the moment when they first start to play the game together, pretending to be married. What happens in that scene?

It starts in the cafe, when the bartender asks her a question about him as a husband. He doesn’t know what to answer and turns to her, and she’s so angry. He’s not getting involved! He doesn’t know what to say. She catches him not playing the game, not being responsible, and it hits something in her: Oh, men! Men are not responsible! [Laughter.]

Anybody who’s ever been married is likely to identify strongly with that scene. [Laughter.] You know, you’re running the risk of playing someone who’s not likable all the time here.

Oh, yeah. Absolutely.

Maybe not even most of the time! At least at the beginning of the film, at least, she’s pretty manipulative.

She’s manipulative, and she wants to be right all the time. But not at the end. At the end of the movie, there’s a moment where she becomes like a little girl.

Oh, I agree. I mean, people will have to see it for themselves, but I think at the end of the movie the audience will fall in love with her, just as the man does. Let me ask you quickly about your career trajectory of working with all these great directors, from Kieslowski and Godard through Haneke and Hou Hsiao-hsien and all the others. You’ve made other kinds of films too, more commercial films, but it’s quite an impressive list.

You know, I had a mother who loved the fine arts, and I was really educated by her. When I was 15, she sent me to see Tarkovsky’s films, Dreyer’s films, Rossellini’s films. I was educating myself very early on, with great directors, with film and theater. So for me it’s always been a continuation of that, that love of vision, of artists, and explorations of the human heart. Ideas, feelings and experiences. For me, it’s the same impulse. As an actress you also want to try other gears, other worlds, because you don’t know them, but you always come back to the world you’re really here for.

I also feel responsible, as an actress, to choose directors I really admire. It’d be easy, you know, to do more commercial films. There’s more money, more fame, more of whatever you want. But to find directors where you feel like: Oh! Artistically there’s a challenge there. Maybe people don’t know about them, but that doesn’t matter. I want to explore something with them. I have to say that it fulfills something in me, that at the end of it I say, “I’ve been through an experience with them, something I’ve never done before.” It’s all about exploration and sharing something with someone. And enjoying it, although it can be quite traumatic along the way. There was a lot of joy in Abbas’ film; we laughed all the time. I mean, it was concentrated and there was intensity. But there was joy as well.

“Certified Copy” is now playing in New York, with wider national release to follow. It’s also available on-demand from many cable and satellite providers.

In recent decades, as the kidult, media-saturated generations raised since the ’70s have grown in consumption power and produced their own offspring, the polarity of animated films has gradually but decisively shifted. This week’s premiere of “Rango,” a grotesque and sometimes thrilling mishmash that announces the arrival of “Pirates of the Caribbean” director Gore Verbinski and George Lucas’ Industrial Light & Magic studio into the animation wars, offers an intriguing case in point. With Johnny Depp voicing the title character, a lost pet chameleon who must save a parched Old West-style town from the depredations of water barons and developers, “Rango” is a chaotic assault of in-jokes and movie quotes, pilfering its plot from “Chinatown” and individual scenes from “Rio Bravo” and “Shane” and “High Noon,” and adding a surprising (for the genre) amount of violence and grisly humor. (My 6-year-old son pronounced it “great,” although roughly three-quarters of it was over his head.)

Verbinski and ILM are seeking a spot in the animation marketplace partway between the upscale, critic-friendly Pixar films and the purposefully idiotic, more kid-oriented DreamWorks franchises like “Shrek” and “Kung Fu Panda.” As I see it, Pixar has understood for years that its principal demographic is adult viewers, and not necessarily just parents. The studio itself has grown up alongside two or three generations of viewers who have no animus against animation, and who are happy to engage with “cartoons” both as a nostalgic exercise and a valid storytelling medium. Of course, certain parental assurances come with the Pixar brand, and that’s important: There won’t be much violence or cursing, the main character will prevail over all obstacles and learn valuable life lessons, and there’ll be just enough comic business to keep younger viewers giggling instead of wriggling.

But “Toy Story 3″ did not become the top-grossing animated feature in history because kids loved it beyond all measure. It’s a tremendously rich entertainment — part pseudo-Proustian meditation on childhood’s end, part pop satire, part prison-break adventure — that’s about 85 percent pitched at viewers in their 30s and 40s. My son liked it just fine (although his twin sister fled the theater in terror), but has never talked about it since or asked to see it again. As he correctly observed afterward, its story has a great deal in common with “The Brave Little Toaster,” and most of the ways in which it’s a better movie are incomprehensible to him. (Indeed, the striking similarities might provoke a lawsuit — if both movies weren’t Disney properties.)

As for the middle-aged melancholy of “Up” and the apocalyptic satire of “Wall-E” (both slightly overpraised, in my book) — well, I’m sure you can find kids who enjoyed them, but they definitely aren’t children’s movies in any conventional sense. Indeed, the expectations for animated film have shifted so much that critics often beat up on movies that cut down on the grown-up cultural references and appeal most strongly to kids. Pixar’s “Cars” is widely regarded by critics as the studio’s weakest film, for instance — and it’s the only Pixar film my kids (and my friends’ kids) want to watch over and over again. (They also like “Monsters Inc.” and “Finding Nemo” pretty well, which likewise aren’t that well regarded.)

DreamWorks has made plenty of money off the “Shrek” and “Kung Fu Panda” franchises, but the studio has never quite shaken off the sense that they’re the second-rate, cynical hucksters of the animation world. (Perhaps because the shoe fits a little too well.) It would certainly appear that there’s an unfilled market niche for old-fashioned animated adventures aimed at actual children, in the classic Disney mode of “101 Dalmatians” or “Pinocchio,” that aren’t laced with ripped-off dialogue from “Star Wars” or principally meant to move Burger King products. (“Despicable Me” was one surprising recent example.) The current Disney studio’s non-Pixar movies, like “The Princess and the Frog” or the forthcoming “Winnie the Pooh” reboot, have sporadically tried to fill that role. But all producers of animated films are facing the same inexorable fact: Grown-ups pay the tickets and the DVDs, and they don’t want to be bored stiff or drowned in saccharine.

You won’t have that problem with “Rango,” anyway. I’m honestly not sure whether or not it’s a good movie, but it doesn’t leave you much time to ponder that question. If you follow the film world, you can’t help but have mixed emotions about Gore Verbinski, a genuine mad genius who can spin crap into gold (and sometimes works in the other direction too). With the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise, Verbinski has turned a threadbare concept based on a Disneyland ride into an enormous money machine that veers from brilliant self-parody into utter and shameless stupidity and then back again. His horror movie “The Ring” was, at least arguably, scarier and more effective than the Japanese original. “Rango” is pretty much what you might expect from a Verbinski approach to the western: It’s hyperactive, often hilarious and ultimately exhausting. Oh, and the characters are all animals — a chameleon, yes, but also mice, tortoises, prairie dogs, Gila monsters and pillbugs. It’s the first pillbug western.

Depp’s motormouth chameleon is closer to Blanche DuBois than a traditional western hero; he’s a couch-potato, legend-in-his-own-mind drama queen who finds himself embroiled in several different overlapping stories when he hits the town of Dirt. One of them is the old legend about the new sheriff who’s gonna set things to rights, one of them is the metaphysical quest for the Spirit of the West (who himself turns out to be, of course, a movie character) and one of them is “Chinatown,” with Ned Beatty doing his best John Huston impersonation as Dirt’s nefarious desert-tortoise mayor, who may have diverted the town’s water into the desert for his own purposes. (The highly enjoyable voice cast also features Isla Fisher as a love-interest female lizard, Abigail Breslin as a mouse and Alfred Molina as an armadillo mystic, along with a pseudo-Greek chorus of mariachi-musician owls.)

ILM’s animators have produced a dazzlingly detailed cast of stop-motion-style characters; although the universe of “Rango” is entirely a digital creation, it’s dense and dirty and looks three-dimensional. To their credit, I guess, Verbinski and screenwriter John Logan (“Gladiator,” “Sweeney Todd”) have given themselves permission to break most of the recent rules about animated movies. Along with the maddening litany of quotations from other movies, “Rango” features extensive and sometimes mordant scenes of gunplay and violence, along with a small furry animal uttering the line, “I once found a human spinal column in my feces.” (I think that line sailed right over my son’s head, but he found the shootouts, along with the slithery rattlesnake villain, a little disconcerting.) You can bring the kids or not; that part’s up to you. But the quippy, ADHD, semi-self-mocking metaverse of “Rango” isn’t really meant for them.

“Alice in Wonderland” easily beat a rush of new movies led by 20th Century Fox’s family film “Diary of a Wimpy Kid,” which opened at No. 2 with $21.8 million. The movie is adapted from Jeff Kinney’s cartoon novel about a sixth grader maneuvering through the intricate social structure at his middle school, which includes its own “cooties” game known as the “cheese touch.”

“I think cheese touch equals magic touch at the box office,” said Chris Aronson, head of distribution at 20th Century Fox.

Debuting at No. 3 was Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler’s action comedy “The Bounty Hunter” with $21 million. Released by Sony, the movie follows a bounty hunter chasing his ex-wife, a reporter with an arrest warrant over her head after she misses a court date while pursuing a story.

“We had figured an estimate in the high teens, so 20-plus million is a good number for us,” said Rory Bruer, head of distribution for Sony.

Jude Law and Forest Whitaker’s action thriller “Repo Men” flopped with a No. 4 opening of $6.2 million. The Universal release features Law as a repo man on the run in a future where organs are bloodily repossessed if patients miss their payments.

In narrower release, Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning’s Joan Jett music drama “The Runaways” opened weakly with $803,629 in 244 theaters, averaging $3,294 a cinema.

That compared to an average of $9,229 in 3,739 theaters for “Alice in Wonderland,” $7,085 in 3,077 theaters for “Diary of a Wimpy Kid,” $6,831 in 3,074 cinemas for “The Bounty Hunter” and $2,440 in 2,521 locations for “Repo Men.”

Released by Apparition, “The Runaways” stars Stewart as Jett and Fanning as singer Cherie Currie as they opened doors for women rockers in the 1970s with an all-girl band.

Ben Stiller’s comic drama “Greenberg” premiered strongly in limited release, pulling in $120,432 in three theaters for a huge average of $40,144 a cinema.

Released by Focus Features, “Greenberg” stars Stiller as a neurotic whose mean tongue jeopardizes a budding romance with his brother’s personal assistant (Greta Gerwig).

James Cameron’s science-fiction blockbuster “Avatar” remained in the top 10 three months into its run. The 20th Century Fox release pulled in $4 million to raise its domestic total to $736.9 million. Worldwide, “Avatar” has taken in $2.67 billion.

“Alice in Wonderland” continued to lift overall Hollywood revenues, which came in at $130 million for the weekend, up 23 percent from the same weekend last year, when the thriller “Knowing” debuted at No. 1 with $24.6 million.

So far this year, domestic revenues are at $2.43 billion, up 10.3 percent over 2009′s, according to Hollywood.com. Factoring in higher ticket prices, movie attendance is 8.2 percent ahead of last year’s.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Final figures will be released Monday.

1. “Alice in Wonderland,” $34.5 million.

2. “Diary of a Wimpy Kid,” $21.8 million.

3. “The Bounty Hunter,” $21 million.

4. “Repo Men,” $6.2 million.

5. “She’s Out of My League,” $6 million.

6. “Green Zone,” $5.96 million.

7. “Shutter Island,” $4.8 million.

8. “Avatar,” $4 million.

9. “Our Family Wedding,” $3.8 million.

10. “Remember Me,” $3.3 million.

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On the Net:

http://www.hollywood.com/boxoffice

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Universal Pictures and Focus Features are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of General Electric Co.; Sony Pictures, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount and Paramount Vantage are divisions of Viacom Inc.; Disney’s parent is The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is a division of The Walt Disney Co.; 20th Century Fox, Fox Searchlight Pictures and Fox Atomic are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a consortium of Providence Equity Partners, Texas Pacific Group, Sony Corp., Comcast Corp., DLJ Merchant Banking Partners and Quadrangle Group; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC Films is owned by Rainbow Media Holdings, a subsidiary of Cablevision Systems Corp.; Rogue Pictures is owned by Relativity Media LLC; Overture Films is a subsidiary of Liberty Media Corp.

“I believe it’s literally the magical, if you would, pairing of Tim and Johnny,” said Chuck Viane, head of distribution for Disney. “When you take those two, they always seem to make something really out of the ordinary.”

“Alice in Wonderland” added $76 million overseas to bring its international total to $221 million and its worldwide gross to $430 million.

A rush of new movies had so-so openings, led by Matt Damon’s Iraq War thriller “Green Zone,” which debuted at No. 2 with $14.5 million domestically. Released by Universal, “Green Zone” stars Damon as the leader of a U.S. Army team who stumbles onto a conspiracy over the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Paramount’s romantic comedy “She’s Out of My League” debuted at No. 3 with $9.6 million. The movie stars Jay Baruchel as a geek in an unlikely romance with a babe.

“Twilight” star Robert Pattinson’s romantic drama “Remember Me” opened at No. 4 with $8.3 million. The Summit Entertainment release stars Pattinson and “Lost” co-star Emilie de Ravin in a dark story of young lovers with tragedy in their past.

In its fourth weekend, Paramount’s “Shutter Island,” the latest collaboration between Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese, was No. 5 with $8.1 million, raising its domestic total to $108 million.

Debuting at No. 6 with $7.6 million was Fox Searchlight’s comedy “Our Family Wedding,” starring America Ferrera as a Hispanic bride marrying a black man.

“Alice in Wonderland” took in nearly as much as the rest of the top-10 movies combined.

“It’s like this great divide between the No. 1 and 2 films, which says that without ‘Alice in Wonderland’ in the marketplace, we’d be hurting right now,” said Paul Dergarabedian, box-office analyst for Hollywood.com. “By itself, it’s really propelling huge box office.”

Hollywood’s business soared, with overall revenues at $144 million, up 43 percent from the same weekend last year, when “Race to Witch Mountain” led with a $24.4 million debut.

For the year, revenues are at $2.24 billion, up 9 percent compared to receipts last year, when Hollywood took in a record $10.6 billion.

Factoring in higher admission prices, movie attendance this year is running 6.7 percent ahead of 2009′s, according to Hollywood.com. Before “Alice in Wonderland” opened, attendance was lagging slightly behind last year’s.

“In just a couple of weeks, ‘Alice’ has turned the entire marketplace around almost single-handedly,” Dergarabedian said.

James Cameron’s science-fiction sensation remained a strong draw after nearly three months in theaters, taking in $6.6 million to raise its domestic total to $730.3 million. The 20th Century Fox release has topped $2.6 billion worldwide.

Summit Entertainment’s “The Hurt Locker,” which beat “Avatar” for best picture at the Academy Awards, got a slight box-office bump from its Oscar triumph. The Iraq War drama, which is out on DVD but came back to theaters for Oscar season, pulled in $828,000, raising its box-office total to $15.7 million.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Final figures will be released Monday.

1. “Alice in Wonderland,” $62 million.

2. “Green Zone,” $14.5 million.

3. “She’s Out of My League,” $9.6 million.

4. “Remember Me,” $8.3 million.

5. “Shutter Island,” $8.1 million.

6. “Our Family Wedding,” $7.6 million.

7. “Avatar,” $6.6 million.

8. “Brooklyn’s Finest,” $4.3 million.

9. “Cop Out,” $4.2 million.

10. “The Crazies,” $3.7 million.

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On the Net:

http://www.hollywood.com/boxoffice

——

Universal Pictures and Focus Features are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of General Electric Co.; Sony Pictures, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount and Paramount Vantage are divisions of Viacom Inc.; Disney’s parent is The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is a division of The Walt Disney Co.; 20th Century Fox, Fox Searchlight Pictures and Fox Atomic are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a consortium of Providence Equity Partners, Texas Pacific Group, Sony Corp., Comcast Corp., DLJ Merchant Banking Partners and Quadrangle Group; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC Films is owned by Rainbow Media Holdings, a subsidiary of Cablevision Systems Corp.; Rogue Pictures is owned by Relativity Media LLC; Overture Films is a subsidiary of Liberty Media Corp.

Despite the mixed reviews and word of mouth, the Scorsese thriller is still the only real event movie out there for people who don’t need a return trip to Pandora. While I didn’t care for “Shutter Island” one bit, I am heartened that a moody, complicated, two-hour-plus, non-sequel, R-rated thriller from Martin Scorsese is a genuine smash hit. In this day and age, it’s always refreshing to see an adult-driven genre picture to reach heights only usually accorded to franchises and animated films. The picture is Scorsese’s fifth-biggest domestic grosser, and will reach no. 3 on that list by next weekend. Whether or not it can surpass the $132 million earned by “The Departed” is an open question, but it won’t have any demo competition until “The Green Zone.” That Bourne-goes-to-Baghdad thriller opens March 12. (I have no idea if that’s an accurate summary, by the way, but it’s sure how the Paul Greengrass/Matt Damon film is being sold by Universal).

Nos. 2 and 3 went to new releases. Both performed a bit above expectations. Kevin Smith’s “Cop Out” nearly doubled his previous personal-best opening weekend with $18.5 million (his previous high, “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back,” opened with $11 million back in August 2001). This also marks one of Bruce Willis’ best debuts over the last decade, as his star power has decreased since he stopped working with M. Night Shyamalan. It’s his 11th-best opening weekend, and most of the bigger openings were from the 1990s. This isn’t just a case of waning star power as much as Willis choosing non-commercial ventures. No one expected “Alpha Dog” or “Lucky Number Slevin” to play like “Armageddon,” so this solid opening with a purely commercial picture is a good sign.

As for Smith, this will easily become his biggest-grossing picture, as he’s never had a film gross over $31 million (Warner spent $30 million making this one). I’d argue that while the whole “Kevin Smith tossed off airplane” controversy helped push the film into the public consciousness, it still doesn’t excuse how the media covered said event (essentially: “Ha ha, Kevin Smith is fat!” rather than “Hey, Southwest Airlines ejected a passenger who clearly was not too obese to fly!”). As it is, Smith’s movies are often greeted by one controversy or another (Kevin Smith vs. the Roman Catholic church, Kevin Smith vs. GLAAD, Kevin Smith vs. the overexposure of “Bennifer”). It will be interesting to see how the film plays long-term. Despite terrible reviews, it still pulled in a solid 3.13x multiplier, implying theoretically positive word of mouth. It will also be interesting to see if Tracy Morgan gets more film work as a result of this opening, as the film was clearly sold on his antics as much as Willis’ star-power.

Number three went to the remake of “The Crazies,” which Overture opened to $16.5 million. The surprisingly well-reviewed remake of a 1973 George Romero picture pulled in a 2.75x multiplier, which is about normal for a horror film. With this opening and “Law-Abiding Citizen,” “Capitalism: A Love Story” and “Righteous Kill,” Overture is establishing itself as a major player. For what it’s worth, my wife and I watched the original version of “The Crazies” last night, and it’s a shockingly good and genuinely disturbing little picture. If the remake is any good, might I suggest you check out director Breck Eisner’s previous film, the vastly underrated “Sahara”? Anyway, fourth place went to the film that cannot be killed (until next weekend, when it will likely be killed), “Avatar.” Dropping just 13 percent, the James Cameron epic crossed $700 million in its 11th weekend. Alas, this will likely be the last weekend of tiny drops, as Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” opens on Friday and will steal all of the IMAX screens and most of the 3D auditoriums.

The only limited releases were the foreign-language Oscar nominee “A Prophet” ($170,000 on nine screens), “Formosa Betrayed” ($69,000 on 15 screens), the documentary “Art of the Steal” ($40,300 on three screens) and “The Yellow Handkerchief” ($39,600 on seven screens). Roman Polanski’s “The Ghost Writer” expanded to 43 screens and made another $870,000. It’s new total is $1.1 million. While the film was not cheap ($45 million), Summit Entertainment is only on the hook for whatever they paid for North American distribution rights, so this should be a nice non-”Twilight” feather in their cap to go along with their likely Oscar glory for “The Hurt Locker.” Other than that, it was just a matter of various films crossing arbitrary marks. “Valentine’s Day” crossed $100 million, “Percy Jackson and the … too tired to type out the full title for this terrible movie” and “Dear John” crossed $70 million, while “The Wolfman” sits at just $57 million (on a reported budget of $150 million). “Crazy Heart” crossed $25 million and “When in Rome” crossed $30 million. At $248 million, “The Blind Side” is less than $10 million from passing “Star Trek,” after dropping just 10 percent in its 15th weekend.

Join us next weekend for the likely-to-be-huge debut of Disney’s “Alice in Wonderland.” While I likely won’t see it until opening night (it was a choice of seeing it early by myself or waiting until Friday and letting my wife come along), I do hope it’s closer to this than to this. Alas, if you’ve read this, you know where my instincts lie. Also opening is the Antoine Fuqua police drama, “Brooklyn’s Finest” (also from Overture) and the IFC Jon Hamm thriller, “Stolen.” Oh AT&T U-Verse, why don’t you carry IFC On Demand?