Well, the multiplier should be big from Friday to Saturday. This kind of Friday was expected, as over a thousand theaters were being slashed. I'd expect about $2.5 M 3-day, which wouldn't be bad at all. That would actually be quite good considering how many theaters it lost.

My last wish is that VDT beats Yogi Bear. Yogi has held very well past the holidays, and might still be in play for $100 M. We need VDT to beat Yogi, not for any real reason, but just so that I can still have faith in America.

VDT made approximately $2,325,000 over the weekend. That would equate to a -49.5% drop from last weekend - worse than LWW and even PC. The domestic total now sits at an estimated $98,068,000, and VDT is still on pace to pass $100 million with ease. I'm guessing VDT will make somewhere between $105-110 million.

VDT did not come even close to beating Yogi Bear, which made an estimated $5,345,000.

http://www.boxofficemagazine.com/news/2 ... e-overseas

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader: $9 million internationally for a global cume of $258.9 million.

So total with updated international: 356,97 Million.

Well, I was hoping for around 12 million from holdovers. I hope it will go up. I think VDT has left theaters in some countries. We still have Japan opening. Assuming it gets around 20 million, plus another 10-20 from holdovers, we should get a minimum of 387-97, which would still cause it to fall short of 400 million. Still not bad. Japan is the big key. It is a huge market. If it performs better then Caspian, I see us definitely reach 400 million.

I love this quotation so I'm re-posting it:

VDT will blow right past $100 million. My very pessimistic predictions:

Monday: $280,000 (-80%)
Monday-Thursday: $1,000,000. TOTAL: $95,700,000.

Friday: $500,000 (+100%)
Saturday: $1,000,000 (+100%)
Sunday: $750,000 (-25%)
Weekend: $2,250,000 (-55%, very pessimistic for MLK weekend)
-49.5% drop from last weekend... The domestic total now sits at an estimated $98,068,000...

(Emphasis added.)

We are still doing better than the pessimistic predictions so we're doing good. Besides, we still have MLK Monday to go.

We are gettting close to that hundred million mark now. The sweet agony of hoping it will make it.

Love the analysis! I agree that 1000-theater drop seems large. I wish that had happened this coming Tuesday, after MLK weekend. Oh well.

As long as VDT passes 100M domestic and 400M internationally, I'm fine. But it isn't up to me but to Walden (and Fox?). What will they think about VDT's numbers? Surely as long as it does better than PC, it's in the bag, right?

@wagga: thanks for the Japan and Australia post. There's just no way the Australian actors could have made the Dec 2 premiere. Maybe they should have kept the Dec 9 date for at least an Australian presence, if a UK one clearly wasn't manageable (with Skandar and Georgie in the US). But maybe they didn't want to compete with the US premiere. Oh well. I'd also love to see the Narnia cast and crew at an Australian premiere of Silver Chair.

With the new estimates it looks like VDT has just passed the following landmarks worldwide:

$349 million (Our middling estimate for SC greenlight) -estimated by adding PC's profits to VDT's $155 million production cost.

$350 million (VDT becomes statistically more profitable than PC)

and this domestically:

$96.1 million (62% of Dawn Treader's production budget) -PC only made 62% of its production budget during its entire run. A good number to beat to help ensure SC.

Dawn Treader has now made 63% of its production budget back from the domestic box office.

It has made back 230% of its production budget back in total.

With each step we are getting closer to SC. I'm still thinking that we won't be sure about another Narnia movie until we hit $400 million worldwide though. Continue to encourage your friends to see the VDT.

The next landmarks to beat are:

$372 million (The Golden Compass worldwide take)

[Worldwide]

and

$98.7 million (Date Night domestic take)

[Domestically]

We need VDT to beat Yogi, not for any real reason, but just so that I can still have faith in America.

LOL, I know what you mean, but, to be fair on America, Yogi had dramatically better marketing. A lot of Americans still don't have a clue that Dawn Treader is even out.

In preparing to go with my brother to see Voyage of the Dawn Treader for a 4th time, I searched on the internet for showtimes and found out that many of the theaters that played the movie are no longer doing so. Is this done at the studio's discretion or the movie theater's? I noticed that Gullivers Travels remains in these movie theaters, and that movie has poorer sales than Dawn Treader.

Then, when I went on Boxofficemojo.com to check this out, I noticed that they dropped a total of 594 movie theaters nationwide. Now, I understand if a movie theater drops a movie for poor sales. I understand that. But to keep Gulliver's Travels which is doing poorer than Dawn Treader for me raises some questions.

@Making_Sense I wondered the same thing. The theaters nearby where I live have all dropped VDT. The nearest theater still showing it is about an hour away and its in 3D. I'm getting a group together to see it either tonight or tomorrow as I have not seen it in 3D yet. But I wondered what the rationale of the smaller theaters was in dropping it now in favor of movies that aren't doing as well.

LWW did 57 Million in Japan, and PC did 27 Million.

I hope that VDT Can beat PC with at least a total of 30 Million.

What do you think the final Japan Gross of VDT?

But to keep Gulliver's Travels which is doing poorer than Dawn Treader for me raises some questions.

Just because a movie is doing poorly across the United States doesn't mean that it is doing poorly in a particular location. Harry Potter might be a very popular film, but if nobody in one particular town went to go see it, the theater wouldn't show it because it isn't making them money.

LWW did 57 Million in Japan, and PC did 27 Million.

I hope that VDT Can beat PC with at least a total of 30 Million.

What do you think the final Japan Gross of VDT?

I think that VDT has a chance at $30 million in Japan as it has equaled or surpassed PC in a number of countries already.

Also, to put this weekend to last's in the proper perspective, the per-theater average was $1,635 and $1,364 respectively. That is a drop of 16.6% which is a better comparison than the 49.5% drop in gross after losing over 1100 theaters.

If it had been in the same number of theaters then the gross-dollar-amount comparison would be valid. Also, LWW and PC didn't lose as many theaters during their sixth weeks.

Too bad we are taliking about reaching $100-$105 million instead of $200-$205 million or $300-$305 million. If only certain things had been different.

I already made a post about this, but I'd urge people not to do too much stressing out about how this movie needs to perform in order to get a sequel. Fox/Walden may surprise us all.

It's fun to speculate, but remember to take it all with a grain of salt and not feel defeated or victorious at any given step in the process until that announcement comes.

We all want VDT to make as much as possible at the box office. (I want it to hit $100M, but really only because it's a satisfying-looking number. I don't think it actually means much.) The reality of modern Hollywood is that box office receipts are really only one piece of the overall profit pie. DVD and television rights are actually where MOST of the money is. The theatrical release is almost more about simply building awareness of the film than the be-all, end-all.

Here's a really interesting essay about how Hollywood movies actually make money:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/5885934/How-f ... make-money

You just never know until the movie has fully gone through all of its channels. For example, The Punisher. The 2004 theatrical release didn't do well at all at the box office. But DVD sales were so strong that the decision was made to produce the 2008 sequel/reboot. Again, DVD sales changed everything.

Obviously, with a huge hit, a sequel is a foregone conclusion (as is no sequel for a huge bomb), but anything inbetween, you really just never know, and one film/franchise is rarely comparable to another. At this point, VDT is squarely in that "inbetween" gray area. It's no megahit, but it's certainly no bomb either.

My crystal ball says that yes, there will be at least one more Narnia movie, but there's going to be a catch. Dramatically lowered budget, straight to DVD, some kind of hybridized story (HHB + LB, or MN + LB), something like that. That's just my feeling. I may be totally wrong, but anything that the worldwide public can give almost $400 million to at the box office isn't just going to be scrapped!