CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER
Posted on 12/13/2010 9:57:41 AM PST by SeekAndFind
"The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader" debuted at the top of the box office this weekend.
The third movie entry based on the beloved children novels by C.S. Lewis raked in $24.5 million in U.S. and Canadian theaters despite a weak start on Friday.
In the latest Narnia movie, the two youngest Pevensies, Edmund (Skandar Keynes) and Lucy (Georgie Henley) journey back to the magical Kingdom along with their bratty cousin Eustace (Will Pouter). Led by King Caspian (Ben Barnes), the crew set out on a quest on the Dawn Treader to battle new threats to the Narnia while struggling over temptations like pride, greed, and envy.
Despite nabbing the number one box office rank, "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" fared way below what its predecessors of the same series took in opening weekend.
"The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," the first movie installment of the Narnia series, made $65.5 million during its opening weekend in 2005.
Three years later, "Prince Caspian" took in about $55 million during its first week in theaters.
Both previous movie adaptations were produced by Disney, which abandoned plans to translate all seven books of the series into film following dismal results from Prince Caspian.
The second installment took in a total of $419 million worldwide but cost $200 million to produce. "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" had a smaller budget of $180 million but pulled in $745 million in ticket sales worldwide.
This time around, 20th Century Fox partnered with Walden Media to set sail with "Voyage of the Dawn Treader." The producers made an effort to make the film more accessible to families by steering clear of the warlike tone of "Prince Caspian." The franchise also marketed to faith audiences by offering early screenings and preaching resources to pastors.
Despite a less than stellar opening weekend, Fox senior vice president Chris Aronson said, "On the domestic side, our best days are still ahead of us with the school holidays and Christmas yet to come," according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The fantasy film has so far earned a worldwide total of $105.5 million.
Disney remains a box office contender, raking in $14.5 million with "Tangled," an animated feature based on the classical story of Rapunzel.
"The Tourist" also opened this weekend, coming in second with $17 million.
Meanwhile, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1" fell down to fourth place with $8.5 million.
Saw it. Loved it. Going back for more.
;-)
So funny...I heard a report of this movie on a liberal news station in D.C. — they said it debuted at #1, but it didn’t do as well as the previous two on the first day, so people were obviously tired of the Christian message. I screamed at the radio. Really did.
I took my 9 y.o. daughter to see it yesterday and the scene towards the end with the sea monster was quite scary. Overall it was a good movie but the scene with the magician could have been a bit more developed.
I guessing Pirates would get first in that scenario - it has the broadest appeal. Harry Potter has too many ‘tards that think it’s satanic to get first in that scenario and narnia has too many ‘tards that think it’s a “goody-two-shoes” line of movies.
Can’t wait to see this - Dawn Treader is my fave of the books.
I have the OST. It is really good, fine effort by Dave Arnold.
Gee.
Yet ANOTHER G-rated smash hit.
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Unmet need.
Monopoly competition obsessed with pervsion and negativity.
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Well yeah it’s number 1, on a really weak weekend. It made #1 in a week when nobody is happy with their revenue, but somebody had to be #1.
It’s not a smash hit. It pulled about half the revenue the previous picture did in its opening weekend, and that one barely broke even which is why it took so long for anybody to green light this one. Unless it has a very counter to trend second week there probably won’t be a 4th.
Saw it with my 12 and 14 year-old daughters on Saturday, doing our Christian duty to boost the opening box office. The older girl was enraged to tears with the liberties the movie took with the plot. I expected less — book and movies are different genres, with different requirements — but was still disappointed. It was a good movie, but not what one would expect give the excellence of the source material. The “McGuffins” — the mechanized magical element — may have been required for cinematic purposes, but really left us cold.
The one thing they did well, however, was expanding upon and developing the character of Eustace. Pity they scrubbed the “baptism” scene ...
“It’s not a smash hit.”
###
But it will be.
But, yeah. I guess they’re just lucky there wasn’t say, a queer cab driver epic released this week, or maybe a “sophisticated light comedy” featuring adultery and edgy bondage.
Saw Harry Potter over the weekend. Slow, boring movie. Zuben's Recommendation? Save your money.
"There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it."
We really enjoyed it, but get this. We saw it on Saturday night at the AMC theater in Downtown Disney. The theater wasn’t even half full. I was surprised, but maybe people don’t go to Downtown Disney to watch movies.
Because of the fight scene with the sea monster at the end, I think it is rated PG.
This one was good. Very well acted and the special effects were almost flawless.
Not here, the foreign box office is actually pretty huge (81 mil) so maybe abroad. But typically a movie loses 1/3 of its revenue every weekend, so it’ll hit 16 next weekend and probably wind up around 100 for the whole run. Which for a 155 million dollar budget is a big loss. But foreign could make up for it.
My favorite scene in the whole book was where Ramandu delivered the verbal smackdown to Eustace in their repartee over the essence of being. It was dropped from the film.
Apart from that, I enjoyed it, and as with the other Chronicles films to date, I truly appreciated that the CGI and effects were used to effectively enhance the storyline and acting rather than replace them.
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