I've put a lot of thought into the question of VDT's success and the result is the following essay:

Reasons why I think Dawn Treader will do better than Prince Caspian:

1. Dawn Treader is a better story.
Generally speaking, people think that VDT is the best book of the series and that PC is the worst in the series. Or, put another way, VDT tends to be readers' favorite of the Chronicles, whereas PC tends to be readers' least favorite.

2. Dawn Treader is a lighter story/ more family friendly.
Caspian was a darker story, and thus some families were uncomfortable bringing their children along to the theatre. This means fewer tickets were sold. I personally know two parents who did not let their kids watch the film until it was on video. That's a loss of about $12 right there. Start multiplying that by the number of concerned parents and you can see that Caspian lost a considerable amount of cash by going the "grittier, darker" route. Dawn Treader is so light and magical that I think parents will be less concerned.

3. Dawn Treader has less competition.
Did anyone else think that opening Caspian between Iron Man and Indiana Jones was a bad idea? Summer 2008 was an exceptionally busy one. Off the top of my head I can think of 6 movies besides PC that I was looking forward to seeing in theaters that summer. In contrast, this summer only two films were on my must-see list. This Christmas also seems to be largely devoid of serious competition. Sure, Tron: Legacy will lead a few of the action/adventurers away, and Yogi Bear will lead a few families into another theater, and maybe even Gulliver's Travels and Harry Potter 7 will lead away some fantasy fans (although HP7 has been released weeks before VDT and GT will be released well after) but this time around, Narnia is the big dog, with no direct competition being released the week before nor the week of Dawn Treader.

4. Dawn Treader is in 3D.
OK, if Clash of the Titans and The Last Airbender can become blockbusters simply by adding 3D, then anything can. Alice in Wonderland had the good fortune to have both 3D AND a decent storyline, and look how far that movie has gone. Although Toy Story 3 was highly anticipated, it also enjoyed a boost from 3D sales. And of course, nobody can easily forget that the highest grossing movie of all time, Avatar, was a 3D movie. Will the quality of Dawn Treader's 3D be as high as Avatars? Probably not. But it will at least be as good as Alice's, and furthermore, the story quality will be comparable to Alice's as well. My guess is that VDT's earnings will fall between Alice's and Caspian's.

5. Dawn Treader is being marketed to the Christian audience, whereas Caspian was not.
The Christian audience is sizable; -it can really make a movie successful. The Christian audience is also hard to mobilize by conventional marketing techniques. Before the Church gets behind a movie, it first must be convinced that the film is free from objectionable content, and then that the film is useful for ministry. The church got behind movies as different as The Passion of the Christ and Fireproof and made both films big successes. Disney had the foresight to enlist the help of Grace Hill Media to market LWW to churches, and the movie was a success. Disney then got cocky and decided to market PC on its own to general audiences, forgetting its primary audience: the church. PC was a relative failure. Fox learned from Disney's mistake and seems to understand that the church is key to making VDT a success. They have again gotten Grace Hill onboard and the Christian world is very aware of Dawn Treader. Contrast that with May 2008 where it seems that many church leaders were not aware that there even was a second Narnia film, much less that it was in theaters.

These are five good reasons that VDT has the advantage when it comes to box office revenue. I'm wondering if sites like Box Office Mojo are taking this into account.

Bad news, I just read a poll from boxofficemojo. Here are the statistics:

When will you see
'The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader?'
30.2% Never
28.1% Opening Weekend
21.9% Sometime in Theaters
13.5% On DVD/Blu/VOD
6.3% On TV

If you have an account please vote. Its bad publicity when the highet option is those who will never see the movie.

You can vote here : http://boxofficemojo.com/polls/

When will you see
'The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader?'
30.2% Never
28.1% Opening Weekend
21.9% Sometime in Theaters
13.5% On DVD/Blu/VOD
6.3% On TV

Which is ironic because on Rottentomatoes 92% wanted to see it...

The reviewer at boxofficemojo has a complete hate to Narnia and for all 3 films he had tried to give it as bad a publicity as he can without sounding unprofessional. I'm not surprised that the readers were persuaded.

Yeah, I really don't think this means anything. I've been a member of Boxofficemojo ever since LWW came out, an based on what I know of the people who are members there, this is not surprising at all. When the first VDT came out, there was probably more negativity there than about anywhere else on the internet. Pretty much EVERYONE hated it! You have to understand that must of the people are either teenagers or young adults. Not the type that would normally be interested in Narnia.

Boxofficemojo is NOT a reflection on the average moviegoer.

Boxofficemojo is NOT a reflection on the average moviegoer.

I think its fair to say that the entire internet is not a reflection of the average moviegoer.

Many times in the past few years have you seen movies with massive amounts of "online buzz" end up failing badly at the boxoffice because they simply didn't have the mainstream appeal beyond the core internet geek crowd. This years "Kick Ass" and "Scott Pilgrim Vs The World" both spring to mind in that category (both of which were rather good movies)

I voted 40-50 million and hope the actual opening weekend gross exceeds my expectations to be 50-60 million.

Megamind took in $16 it's opening weekend and Tangled $48, but that was over Thanksgiving weekend. So I'd venture a guess to say $20 with the buzz isn't a bad thing to hope for.

FYI- Megamind took in $46M its opening weekend (Thanksgiving was its 3rd weekend in release, when it made $16M). Sorry had to say that, it'd kill me otherwise
EDIT: (sorry, another person said this already. I really need to read all before commenting) :END EDIT

and a $20M opening for Narnia would kill the series, even for this season, it's definitely a bad thing to hope for. It needs at least $45 or so to look hopeful, I voted for $40-50m.

I;m actually a little bit scared as to how it will do. I hope it does well and i know all of you hope the same as well.

yes, I'm getting scared too. I'm hopeful for it though. It's the fear that it all hangs on this movie, for future movies. Oh, the pressure!!!

Right, 20 million would be very bad. It would mean the end of the series. It really needs to make at least 40 million.

Here are 2 links to predictions for the coming USA opening weekend.

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/weekendw ... p?id=72164
http://boxofficemojo.com/derbygame/

Right now The Weekend Warrior has VDT at $41.8 million and The Box Office Derby is at $48.4 millon.

Another thing to remember is that the 2 weeks before the Chistmas-New Years holiday are usually the slowest of the entire year. People are shopping and schools are busy winding up things till the new year.

So a $40-$50 million opening isn't too bad heading into the holidays which will give a boost like no other time of the year. And the early news from Mexico is good where VDT opened #1 in only 3d theaters.

Right now The Weekend Warrior has VDT at $41.8 million

Ah ha, now there's a name a recognize and it makes me feel a little bit better at just how wrong these predictions can be. The Weekend Warrior predicted that Prince Caspian's opening weekend would be $81.6 million. It actually opened at $56 million. I would like them to be very wrong once again. Well... wrong in VDT's favor that is.

You all put way to much stock into Box Office Mojo I've been a member of that site for years. The derby results are just the average of normal people like you or me making predictions about the upcoming weekend. Not to say some don't know what they're doing just usually the average (like 48 mil for DT) is usually off by around 5 million or so and sometimes a lot more. Especially when it comes to a new release (though usually the average is higher than what it actually turned out to be... which seems to be more in line with the tracking... right now Dawn Treader has been tracking at 41 million I think but that's not always accurate...).

Also the poll (when do you plan to see Dawn Treader?)... that is usually WAY different from what actually happens at the box office. Most of the users on BOM are males in their late teens to early and mid 20's... not the market Dawn Treader is going for anyway.

EDIT: Oh, and one other thing... in 2005 everyone underestimated LWW thinking King Kong was gonna kill it. Everyone thought 60 mil was tops and I think it ended up with 65 mil. When PC came out, EVERYONE over predicted with weekend predictions going from 70-80 mil. So I think this is going to be a hard movie for anyone to predict. The series has been pretty unpredictable.

I take a lot of stock in BOM when they start releasing their hard data on the box office numbers coming in. But on the other hand, whoever does their editorial writing... I almost always completely disagree with them. This is the first I've ever heard of these Derby Results so I'm glad to hear that they're predictions from normal people rather than "experts".
Thanks Mischief_3lf!