Mariah Carey sings track for the Disney film 'Oz the Great and Powerful'

The "Oz" hot-air balloon, emblazoned with #DisneyOZ, made stops at the Disneyland theme park in Anaheim, California, and the Daytona 500, where Franco was grand marshal. It is heading to Central Park next week and an appearance on "Good Morning America" on Disney-owned ABC.

Television promotions for the film have been hard to miss. Disney ran a pricey commercial during the CBS telecast of the Super Bowl. It also enlisted Mariah Carey to sing a song from the film on Fox singing contest "American Idol," according to producer Joe Roth.

On ABC's "The Bachelor," host Chris Harrison interrupted the dating competition to introduce a brief appearance by Michelle Williams, Mila Kunis and Rachel Weisz, the actresses who play the film's three witches. A pair of Dorothy's red slippers from the original "Wizard of Oz" made an appearance at ABC's Academy Awards broadcast in a glass case, which was covered until red carpet host Kristin Chenoweth unveiled it.

Disney experienced the expensive downside of its big-budget film strategy last year, when the $250 million film "John Carter" became one of Hollywood's costliest flops, saddling Disney's studio with an operating loss of $84 million for the fiscal second quarter.

Only a couple months later, Disney saw the other side of releasing a big-budget movie when Marvel superhero mashup "The Avengers" recorded the biggest domestic debut of all time and earned more than $1.5 billion around the world.

After "John Carter" bombed, Disney named a new studio head, Alan Horn, a former Warner Bros. executive with a record of success managing "Harry Potter," "The Dark Knight" and other major film franchises.

It also geared up its vaunted marketing machine, partnering with the HSN shopping network on an Oz-inspired fashion line and setting up a "Land of Oz" garden at Epcot, on top of the millions it spent elsewhere.

"You have to hand it to Disney," said Jeff Bock, box office analyst at Exhibitor Relations Co. "They do go all out. They're going to spend $200 or $250 million on these productions and make a real spectacle."

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