Nearly five years ago, on December 9, 2005, “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” debuted in American theaters en route to a $65.5 million opening weekend gross. Eventually, the film grossed $745 million worldwide.
“Prince Caspian” was released just over two years later to a disappointing $55 million opening weekend in the US, gradually earning just under $420 million worldwide. A princely sum – pun absolutely intended – to be sure, but far short of expectations.
How will “Voyage of the Dawn Treader” compare to its predecessors? Speculation has begun.
Over at Box Office Buzz, VDT is currently estimated to open in US theaters with a $40.1 million debut weekend (see the right sidebar). Their projection has increased in the last few weeks, although the “number crunching” the site uses is largely a mystery. For example, do they include a multiplier for 3-D ticket sales? How are these figures calculated without knowing a final theater count? Regardless, BOB came pretty close to predicting Harry Potter’s open.
And the IMDb Box Office Message board has this thread, titled “Chronicles of Narnia Predictions.” Contributors seem to have more faith in VDT’s performance, but of course these are nothing more than educated guesses, emphasis on the latter. Remember, “Prince Caspian” was expected to open to $70 million+ in US theaters.
Other points to ponder:
* How will VDT will hold up over the holiday season? LWW did quite well against the competition; PC faded fast.
* How will non-US markets respond to VDT? The film should benefit from its considerable release in India, and opens in several other countries next week, so we’ll know pretty soon.
* VDT’s performance in the UK will also be interesting to watch – PC’s box office in that region was 77% lower compared to LWW.
* Will the faith community respond to VDT as they did to LWW?
* Will marketing continue its current pace and/or pick up steam? I have seen a few TV spots on various American cable networks, but non on top-rated FoxNews, where I should think there is an audience for this type of film (corporate synergy, folks!) While I haven’t seen any roadside billboards, two people – one in Michigan, one in Texas – have mentioned seeing them.
Specifics aside, lets hope for box office earnings that match the time and effort invested to produce the film – and will be sufficient to keep the franchise going.
UPDATE: Gregory Ellwood at Hiflix hints that early tracking on VDT is strong. In particular, that the film and “Tron: Legacy” should “rule December.” Read his article here.
On the other hand, BoxOffice.com’s week-old projection shows VDT opening at $35 million.
I think it should do pretty good. I mean, a friend of ours who has only seen the first two movies and was like ‘they’re *OKAY*’ saw the Trailer for VotDT when she went to see Toy Story 3 and told us: ‘I saw the trailer… it looks AMAZING!’ So she’s even excited about it.
Good point… so even the people who have bitter feelings about PC will have hope in this movie.
I’m sure that people will go see it again….maybe even that same weekend, which would help boost the sales. I know I would see it twice just to catch things that I may have missed the first time around.
Everyone should spread the word about how awesome it is once they see it. Facebook will be flooded with positive reviews!
40 million it should be more. I hope it does more. Tell your friends and family to see this movie. Word of mouth does good. I want to see all these books made into movies.
Daniel, it would surprise me if the movie opened to $40 million – I am no expert in such matters, but anticipate a stronger open. I hope the film has some legs and stays strong through the holidays.
word of mouth worked for how to train your dragon. it was initially estimated to be a failure, but extremely positive word of mouth for teh film spread, and it was able to recapture the #1 spot in it’s 5th weekend of release, and is currently on the list of top grossing films of 2010. let’s hope that the word of mouth will spread quickly w/dawn treader. there’s already a ton of advertising for it in me theater in traverse, and the hit music radio station is really pushing for it!
no kidding. I mean, I had *heard* vaugly that there was a ‘train your dragon’ movie and thought ‘another stupid Dreamworks.’ We saw it about two weeks ago and have watched it 10 times (and plan on watching it tonight) and it still hasn’t lost it’s charm. HtTYD was just plain awesome. A failure?! Wow that sure changed, huh? And now they’re making a number 2 *squeals for joy*
Let’s hope that Narnia does as well!
Ya, I saw the trailer and thought… ahh dreamworks movies are really starting to suck! but then my friend saw it and said: “It was probably better than Kung Fu Panda!” (I LOVED Kung Fu Panda) And so I saw How to train your dragon and *LOVED* it! I will definitely buy it for Christmas! Anyhew, if VOTDT does this than we will be racking in maybe over a billion???
I really think it will have a stronger opening than PC!
I mean not very many people liked PC and it got $55 mil, there is no way this will get less!
FYI: You guys need to see, How to Train Your Dragon and Megamind!!! they are both awesome movies! How to Train your Dragon with more of a storyline than comedy, but still a few chuckles here and there, and Megamind with an INSANELY original storyline, enjoying to see and very funny… both of these don’t have very much of dreamworks famous potty humor! so go see ’em!
advertising in churches helps a lot, that’s the main reason I ever saw the first movie, or even heard about the second.
When Disney released LWW they had a very aggressive advertising campaign. They got me into the theater; I had never heard of Narnia before. When they got around to PC, they seemed to advertise mainly on Disney properties, ABC and the Disney Channel, to the exclusion of other media. As we know PC did not do as well. Is Fox going to make the same mistake and advertise VDT mainly on News Corp. properties to the exclusion of others or is Fox going to be very aggressive the next two or three weeks. We are at the point where Fox determines the success or failure of VDT. Good reviews are not enough. Fox needs to tell the world how great this movie is.
i’ve seen ads on all of the major networks in addition to kid-oriented networks like nick and cartoon network (as it is not a disney film, it is not advertised on disney channel). i’ve seen a couple of ads on TLC, most likely to tie in w/ the Voyage to Alaska sweepstakes. it’s steppin it up, and i only expect advertising to increase over the next two weeks.
I don’t watch TV very often, and I’ve been seeing many advertisements, and we don’t even have many of the major networks. looks like they are doing an awesome job of advertising to me.
Thank you. I am just being paranoid. I want this film to do well so we can have more Narnia movies.
i don’t think you are being paranoid, i dont think the casual viewer has any idea this movie even exists. we’ve had harry potter ads crammed down our throats – fox should have put vdt trailers at the potter movies. this lack of advertising makes me nervous- and what aboiut merch? no poster?
Yes! We have alot of Billboards here in Florda, I have two quite close to my house, and have seen at least 3 Billboards today. There is alot of advertising in one of our malls and I seen the IcePalace Just for VDT.
I really do Hope this is going to do well, I keep talking about it to my friends!
Here’s current amounts that VDT would have to make to get on the following lists (the film it would have to surpass is in parentheses):
TOP 10 HIGHEST GROSSING FILMS OF 2010
$370,007,000 (Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows Pt. 1)
TOP 50 HIGHEST GROSSING FILMS OF ALL TIME
$624,386,746 (Hancock)
And to get Narnia back on to the list of Top 20 highest grossing franchises all time, VDT would have to gross the following amount:
$237,271,791
(the current franchise in the #20 spot is the Mission: Impossible series with $1,401,934,476;
Narnia currently has $1,164,662,685)
I’ll bring more box office stats on the day of release, but that’s just to give you an i dea of the kind of numbers VDT would have to do.
Queen Helen: first of all, thanks for these stats! Do you happen to know what the production budget of this film is? I’m very curious!
The Voyage begins in 13 days (US)
i can’t get official conformation on this, but what I’ve been hearing is between $140-150 million. This is a slightly tighter than Caspian’s, which was over $200 million. But come on, if Harry Potter can gross almost $400 million in one week (not weekend), than that gives me greater confidence for this.
I am sure that it will do better than 40 million. I have heard people talking about it without me even bringing it up and they have been saying that it look really good, so I am being positive!
HAS ANYONE SEEN THIS? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn4Wsw9ek6o
I hadn’t! Many thanks, T.T. Really interesting and I’m already promoting it on my Facebook profile.
FOR NARNIA!!!
I would let the natural excitement of the film from it’s fans, amp the film up and not swamp that with wall to wall everywhere you look marketing, instead keeping some in reserve so to speak instead of being everywhere and then gone; so it is just hanging around for a longer holiday period with a growing community of a great shared Narnia experience for people -which would be it’s natural wave-length for the majority of people you’d think.
Anyhow, whatever the trajectory is & is meant to be, it seems quite evident that there’s a lot more of a general consensus on what ‘Voyage’ embodies than ‘Caspian’, which had them abit stumped i feel, as it’s been top notch with the feel of the run-up to this film & probably clicking with loads of people.
If Prince Caspian hadn’t been what it was, this film wouldn’t be what it is, and Voyage going alongside the previous two, will really open up the vocabulary of the whole chronicles of Narnia films for people i’d think in reaction to those made and the ones yet to come.
Indians Love NARNIA Films .India Is The Biggest MARKET Of Narnia Films After America(U.S.).i am an indian and you all won’t believe the craze of Dawn Treader Here In India .Sri RAM indian idol season 5 winner has sung a song for hindi music video of dawn treader here in india.
person who dubs in hindi for aslan here has FAR MORE MAJESTIC VOICE THAN Neeson
even prince caspian was super hit in india.Voyage will BE BLOCKBUSTER IN INDIA
thank goodness it’s looking like a hit SOMEWHERE. can you please post the indian aslan’s voice on youtube so we csan hear it here in america? thanks
I saw a roadside billboard when I was in Minnesota last week; It was the same design as the photo on this post: Aslan with the stars or snow.
It was sure exciting!
Same here in Cleveland Ohio! It looks so cool on a sign doesn’t is Looner?
I also saw 3 billboards in St. Louis IL 😀
Saw two different billboards on my way to Indianapolis. They’re there, trust us!
I can vouch for Texas. I’m visiting relatives here in Ft. Worth and saw two along the same stretch of highway. Same one of Aslan’s eyes, but it was still neat to see it. The TV spots have also been showing up on kids networks and networks showing kid-friendly films this holiday weekend.
i wish they wouldn’t treat this as just a kids movie, its for all ages
I’ve seen two billboards here in Charlotte. The Ice Palaces should help with advertising. I think we will come out strong.
They claim Disney made a mistake by moving PC and bringing it out at the wrong time, trying to compete with the summer films, so VDT has an advantage over it immediately. The more people who go to the opening days/weekend will extend the time it’s in the cinemas, so I would encourage people to go as soon as possible to keep it on screens as long as possible. I’ve already bought my tickets for the first 2 days in the UK. Cineworld are doing a stellar job promoting the film. It seems to be out a little earlier in the week than most (8th December) so should clock up a bit more money by the weekend.
plus there’s the india and australian release, so by the time it reaches the U.S., it should have an established international gross.
IN India Narnia DAWN TREADER Trailers Are There On Almost Every Channel Plus There This New Promotional Music Video Sung By Indian Idol 5 Winner.
There are plenty of Narnia Billboards here in Chicago
I’m hopping to get to see VDT sometime over the holiday and I hope it does well, the holiday tie-in seemed to benefit LWW.
On a side note: I saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows this past weekend and they ran the VDT trailer in front of it so VDT is getting exposure.