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.
On average PG-13 movies are the sweet spot and R movies are actually lowest in revenue. But there’s a lot of extenuating circumstances that effect that, not the least of which being that pretty much the entire arthouse subsection of “Hollywood” releases are R rated never wind up on more than 1000 screens in their entire run and will gross less than 10 million dollars. But you know what they say about past performance and the future, just because in general PG movies make more money doesn’t mean a given PG movie will make money. A $24 million opening weekend for a movie with a $155 million budget is very bad. Again it might all get saved by foreign box office where it appears to be killing.
As for gifts, there don’t seem to be much for Narnia, Tron on the other hand...
You can count on your fingers the number of wide release movies that make more money in their second week than their first. Especially when they’re going to have to compete with a Disney movie in their second week.
So there have only been 10? ;-)
Well, he as the author would be the last one to know. Do whatever you want, but as someone who began reading these books at age ten, Nephew is the Genesis of the books.
Probably less. Titanic is the only one I can think of off the top of my head, plus a couple of “almosts” like 6th Sense which only suffered about 900K of drop with a 26 million start. It’s a very rare event in the modern era of wide release movies, their revenue picture is VERY front loaded. The average drop off is 30% per weekend if it’s not a “nerd” movie (comic book movies and similar), 45 to 50% per weekend for “nerd” movies.
The MPAA does those approvals. The theater decides which previews to put in (except for the one slot reserved for the distributor), but they don’t rate them. MPAA rates the movies and previews, and they’re notoriously deeply confused.
This was a well done and fantastic movie. It kept to the book. I don’t see where they trimmed anything about battles.
I think that is just PC PR nonsense.
I want to see how faithful they will be to the next book.
Dawn Treader is my daughter’s favorite book of the series also. She was disappointed by this film. She said that because it wasn’t done by Disney, the animation was not as well done as it could have been. She thought it was too short in length. She also didn’t like the boy actor they chose as Eustis. She liked that Walden Media kept the same four actors as the previous movies. She also thought the sword fight between Edmond and Caspian was well done.
As for Eustace, I thought the actor they selected nailed the role.
what about the line “in your world you know me by a different name”?
In the book, there was more about the journey to the edge. The lion head becoming Aslan and talking to capian, the ship turning back, the mouse’s little boat, drining the sweet water, Reep leaving the sword behind I don’t remember in the book, oh and what about pulling the mouses tail, we could go on and on.
I bet much of these will be available on the DVD or “editor’s cut.” all in all they were true to the book.
My daughter also noticed as another poster commented that they left out the baptism scene where Eustace as a dragon scratches off his scales and then backs into the ocean, sinks and then emerges from the water as a boy. She said it would not have added much time to keep that scene as it was written.
yes it is but it does add to the stories.
In fact, pay attention to the girl’s name at the end.
oh, don’t forget the old man from the start....
AND
just where did the wood come from to build that wardrobe?
:-)
She can’t believe that Disney would not have had something to do with the CGI in the last two movies. She says that Disney would not have released this Dawn Treader with the special effects as they are. She just didn’t like the actor that played Eustace. She agrees that he was very good in the role because she found him to be annoying as h3ll and that she’d like to slap him. lol
She also said that Prince Caspian lost his accent since the last movie.
I never thought of it as overtly religious. I think with eustace saying “I could not do it myself” he accoplish the same end. (only through me ...)
“it hurt but a good hurt like a thorn being pulling. or words to that effect)
bump
This movie was probably the best in the series - the story of Eustace’s redemption was well done and the actor cast for the role did a superb job. I read on another article that the opening night was especially bad but that word of mouth from people who went and saw it increased turnout as the weekend went on and that “exit interviews” (didn’t know such a thing existed for movies) gave it very high marks from those who saw it.
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