"Oz The Great And Powerful" opened at number one at the box office charts in Malaysia, Singapore and US.

13 Mar – With a star-studded line-up of James Franco, Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz and Michelle Williams, it is no surprise that Sam Raimi's stunning adaptation of L. Frank Baum's novel, "Oz The Great And Powerful" debuted in the number one spot in Malaysia in the weekend of 7 to 10 March 2013.

As the prequel story to Baum's 1900 novel "The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz", "Oz The Great And Powerful" follows small-time circus magician Oscar Diggs (Franco), who is spirited away into the land of Oz, where he is hailed as the long-awaited Wizard. However, darkness is afoot in Oz, and it is up to Oscar to discover which of the three witches Theodora (Kunis), Evanora (Weisz) and Glinda (Williams) is good and who is evil.

"Oz" debut led last week's top spot holder "Jack The Giant Slayer" to fall to second place while Wong Jing's kung fu comedy "Princess And Seven Kung Fu Masters", which brings together veteran comedians like Eric Tsang, Sandra Ng, Ronald Cheng, Wong Cho Lam, Natalie Meng and Xie Na as the mysterious and reclusive martial art masters, managed to make its debut in the third spot.

A scene from "Princess And Seven Kung Fu Masters".

Meanwhile, in the US, "Oz The Great And Powerful" also had a remarkable opening premiere, topping the weekend box office with USD 79 million. The Buena Vista-distributed film defeated Bryan Singer's "Jack The Giant Slayer", which was number one last week, whereas Seth Gordon's brand new crime comedy "Identity Thief" starring Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy slipped to third place.

In Singapore, "Oz The Great And Powerful" was also the champion in the weekend box office while "Jack The Giant Slayer" took second place. Meanwhile, the Singaporean horror film "Ghost Child" rounded up the top three.

New movies that opened over the week in Malaysia are "Cerita Kita", "Lawak Ke Der 2", "Snitch", "Sing Your Song", "Stoker", "Dead Man Down" and "Onbathula Guru".

New movies that opened over the week in Singapore are "Stoker", "Stand Up Guys", "The Attacks Of 26/11" and "21 And Over".