Hey Guys, I am new posting on this forum, but ive lurked around when each Narnia movie came out. Like all of us I am a fan of the films and just wanted to comment on the current state of VoDT's run. I am an avid box office follower, so I thought I would throw my "two cents" in.

As everyone here has been saying, this is an extremely poor opening weekend for this film. At an estimated 25 million dollar weekend, Narnia is at the lowest end of expectations. Due to fan rush, most sequels are more "frontloaded" than original films, so they actual have to INCREASE on opening weekend in order to match the original. With this much of a decrease, matching PC at this point is highly unlikely. In fact a 100 million dollar domestic take is a stretch at this point. Also I want to respond to a few things that have been said about the reasons for this opening weekend,

A. The poor opening weekend was not due to weather- I live in the Midwest. There was no serious storm and people are used to getting about in the snow anyways. Even if there had been, that would not have had this massive of an impact on the film. (If I remember right, wasn't there a snow storm when TLTWATW came out in 05?)

B. It isnt the economy or a "bad weekend at the box office." I think in some respects, movies are a non-normal good, meaning that when the economy is bad, people may see more of them because they arent spending money on more expensive things like vacations. (the golden age of the box office was mostly during the great depression and WWII years). Besides that though, blaming the entire economy on this films poor opening is really silly.Plenty of other movies have done excellently this year, The economy didnt stop Toy Story from becoming a billion dollar movie and it certainly didnt stop this film from succeeding either; if people wanted to see this movie, they could have. Also, the reason this weekend was bad was not because it was inherently a bad weekend at the BO, but because few people were interested in the new openers and THAT made it a bad weekend. The movies determine if the box office is good, not vice-versa

C. The film is not likely to have a lengthy run. As a sequel, it will inherently be more front loaded than a regular film because it has an established fan base. Comparisons to movie like Avatar, Titanic, or even the first Narnia film are not good comparisons. Each of those are original films and the first two are box office anomalies that happen once a decade or so. In my mind, the likelihood of this having good drops or even increasing next weekend is extremely unlikely. I think 100 million is the target for this film, and any more than that can be considered a success after this opening. (also, while it has only been out for a couple days, the opening day and weekend are extremely important in determining the success of a film. It is absolutely not to early to label this a failure. While an extremely few films trump the trend and expand after the opening weekend, these movies, like avatar, are really wildcard films that havent reached their full potential yet... VoDT is not such a film)

D. The overseas cume of VoDT is unlikely to compensate for the under performace of its domestic take. American studios generally receives only 30% of the total overseas box office profits, so it is more difficult for them to make money from these markets alone. Plus, there has been a very clear downward trend in the series: extrapolate that further out and there seems to be even less profit on the horizon. Plus I have read that Narnia is under performing in some overseas markets, like Australia and I think Belgium anyways. A good domestic take is a matter of pride for american studios. I dont think they are going to greenlight a sequel just for its overseas cume unless it is outrageous like 500 million or something. They didnt for Eragon or the Golden Compass and they won't for Treader.

As you know, Disney decided to not make this film because of box office concerns. After the under performance of PC they wanted to reduce the budget to an amount that Walden Media felt was unacceptable. By Fox picking them up, they were in effect giving the series one last shot: this this was not the shot they were hoping for. While a run like TLTWATW could not have been expected, I imagine that they hoped to expand on PC's gross or at least match it. With this opening weekend, that is exceedingly unlikely. It wasn't the economy, snow, bad weekend, or anything else. It was a lack of interest either due to poor marketing, fatigue of the series or something else. America voted and they didnt vote for Narnia.

I think this is the last Narnia film we will see in its current state. Narnia got an unlikely life extension; Disney dropped the series and Fox stepped in to give it one more go. After this performance, I think this material will be toxic. No other studios will want to try and do what Fox did another time. It could have ended at Disney, so its really amazing that it continued at all after that. Most series dont, so that is amazing in itself.

Hopefully there will be a reboot of the series at some point, with a visionary director, new cast, and a lower budget (albeit with less cool visuals) that doesn't have to make hundreds of millions of dollars to be deemed successful. That way the film could be geared less to the average donut eatingm non Narnia-literate American masses and more to Narnia lovers like you and me, who care more about an amazing film that respects the source material than one designed to please the whole world. It could be a long time coming, but its still worth the hope!

Thoughts or comments?

Well, you are probably right. It won't have great legs, or match Caspian s boxoffice. As fans of the series, however, we have to hope for that. We have to hope that it will pull an Avatar and keep going and going. I guess we will have to see how the other movies do this month to see whether the economy has anything to do with this. I believe it does to some degree. Christmas is a time of year when people are spending allot of money on gifts. This year might be a year where they don't wanna spend money on allot of extra movies. They may spend money on Tron, but at some point they have to take a break. We will see. So far this December has been one of the lowest of record.

I want to ask, how was the buzz for the film in your area? I don't mean on Narniaweb or among Narnia fans, but with the general public where you live.

How much ads did you see in the paper/on t.v./on radio stations? Was there any buzz? I'm curious because I didn't note much excitement for the film. I thought it might just be me...

I just did some calculations and if VDT follows the same decline in ticket sales from week to week at LWW then its final gross will end somewhere between 110-120 million domestically.
If it follows the same week to week drops in ticket sales as PC then its gross will end somewhere between 60-70 Million domestically.
Either way, there will be no SC.
I think it will end somewhere between the two, and I think we are looking at a 90-100 million final product for the domestic gross.
I have seen it both on the night of the 10, and the 11 and my theaters were 40% full at best.
I am seeing it again tonight (sunday) and again on thursday with friends. But I am holding out on my last SMALL hope that it can pull in some decent numbers over seas.

bom, much of what you say is true. I'm in the Midwest and its just now snowing. That doesn't explain the poor Friday box office. And you're right - we had much more snow the weekend LWW came out, and that movie made about as much in one day as VDT did in three days. I drove through a couple inches of snow to a midnight showing of LWW that was sold out. Half these people saying "its the weather!" just assume if it snows, everything stops. Pathetic!

My only correction would be that there were other reasons why Disney left the Narnia franchise. It was not only related to finances. The script was also an issue.

Interestingly enough, Disney wanted to cut the VDT budget to $100 million. So, with a worldwide box office of around $200 million and DVD sales, they would have broken even. It looks like that's what VDT will make after all - maybe Disney had the right idea budget-wise.

I think you're right about this being the end of the line for the Narnia films. At this point I would be surprised to see Fox continue the films or another studio step-in.

I think I know the reason Narnia is coming in with disappointing numbers, one word: piracy. Heard from a friend there is a quality bootleg floating in cyberspace.

... That way the film could be geared less to the average donut eatingm non Narnia-literate American masses and more to Narnia lovers like you and me ...

Welcome aboard and thanks for posting, bom.

Going this route could be successful, but I don't see it happening any time soon. There would be less weeping and gnashing of teeth amongst the core fans and would introduce folks a little more thoughtfully to the the source material.

I don't like to complain without providing a workable solution (part of my job), but the series of movies never sat well with me.

The mediocre opening Friday is mainly due to the fact that many kids are in school and thus it is not feasible for families to go that day.

I went today at an 11AM showing. There must have been at least 20 individuals watching it. At 11AM. On a Sunday morning- when many people are asleep or at church. It was not even the 3D version. And it was very overcast when I entered and raining (not torrentially, but not just misting) when I exited.

So I have high hopes for this movie doing better the rest of the weekend. I may go see it again this evening if I get everything else done and the weather gets better.

Yes, I had the same experience going to see VDT yesterday. There were about 20 people on a Sunday morning, and it isn't snowing here. It is not quite the end of term. That will happen at the end of this week, when some school groups might possibly take their pupils to see the movie as part of end of year activities.

Already people are busy with Christmas shopping and of course it isn't snowing here. Far from it. I think that the marketing was very poor for this movie. For weeks I tried to get tickets for the first Saturday only to find that online there were no advance sales and when I asked at the cinema, the ticket staff didn't even know what I was talking about.

I guess the nail on the coffin will be to see how it performs on it's 2nd weekend. Anything more than a slight drop will mean the neutralizing of our last weapon: word of mouth.

According to Box Office Mojo Dawn Treader currently made 29,300,000 dollars worldwide. So, um, yay?

Yahoo movies is reporting $80 million from overseas.

"Dawn Treader" revenues showed a huge drop from 2005's "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," which took in $65.6 million over opening weekend, and 2008's "Prince Caspian," which did $55 million.

But with the movie topping $80 million in 85 countries overseas, for a worldwide total of $105.5 million, executives at distributor 20th Century Fox said they are making good headway toward recouping the movie's budget of just under $150 million.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101212/ap_ ... box_office

Wow, fantastic news! I knew it would do well, though the USA Boxoffice is dissapointing to say the least.
100 Million passed already. With the holidays arriving in a couple of weeks, this could break the 300 million with ease.

"But with... a worldwide total of $105.5 million, executives at distributor 20th Century Fox said they are making good headway toward recouping the movie's budget of just under $150 million.

That doesn't sound so bad

Obviously there is the additional cost of marketing to factor in to that, and the relative variations in profit margins between international and domestic takings, but given how bad it's been going so far that does make for slightly more comforting reading.

Now I'm too scared to be happy... praying things continue to get better!