‘Dawn Treader’ Grosses $10.5m Over New Years Weekend
Happy 2011! The Voyage of the Dawn Treader grossed an estimated $10.5m over the holiday weekend. Box Office Mojo writes:
[Gulliver’s Travels] remained in eighth place and couldn’t top its 20th Century Fox stable mate The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which drew $10.3 million in its fourth weekend. With $86.9 million in 24 days, Voyage lost more ground to [Wardrobe] but it gained some on [Caspian].
The film has now grossed $86.9m domestically. Its worldwide total is up to $297.1m.
Still no word on another Narnia film being green-lit, but keep checking back!
I agree with you. I don't expect any of the movies except for LB to top LWW. I want SC to do just as well, but I'm not sure it will. MN should be huge, maybe do as well as LWW, because of, as you said, the creation of Narnia, but also because the digital effects they will have to do to pull it off will be huge and absolutely amazing. And LB, being the last book and the end of Narnia, will be huge cause it's the series closer and the end of the Narnian world and the beginning of something so much bigger. Besides, it's much darker than any of the others, and I can see it having a PG-13 rating so they can get across how scary and dark it is that Narnia is ending. That will probably bring in more viewers and fans, because families and younger kids will still see it cause it's Narnia, but knowing it's more intense then the previous movies will attract more older kids and young adults. I really hope LB does exceed LWW success. Wouldn't that be the perfect ending of the Narnia movies to have the last film be the ultimate finale, everything else climaxing up to it, and nothing else being as spectacular as it.
No, PC was not a flop. I was disappointed in the movie, but still, it did better than a lot of other films of that budget have done. It just didn't live up to the success of LWW, which everyone thought it would.
It'll happen, I'm almost positive. I'm more worried that they will stop after SC, which will be horrific. SC is one if not my favorite book in the series too, but I would be devastated if they didn't make all of them. Although if they keep making them the way the made PC and VDT, changing them so much they almost couldn't be called PC or VDT, maybe they shouldn't. Maybe you SHOULD take over as director. ^_^
@Gem: What movies? Were they considered successful? Did they have sequels?
Also, in an article in the L.A. Times, representatives at Walden admitted that, even with DVD sales, they never made back their money on Prince Caspian. Lack of profit = flop.
VDT has already passed PC's lifetime totals in Russia, South Korea, and Brazil, among the not-to-be-sneezed at markets. 🙂
Okay, the fact that VDT's gaining ground on PC is definitely giving me more hope. But the less than $100 million domestic total really bothers me. Usually for a film to have done "well," it has to gross at least $200 million in the U.S.
But then again, it's still only been a month, and it has yet to be released in some countries. The international gross I feel is going to be much more important to the making of SC than it would be in terms of other films. Narnia is more of a
global franchise anyway.
By the time it's pulled out of theaters internationally, it probably will have around $400 million worldwide, which is pretty good. This doesn't take into account DVD/Bluray sales, though, because it will earn more from those too.
THE SILVER CHAIR WILL BE MADE!! Keep on praying, people.
PC wasn't the most sucessfull movie, but I wouldn't consider it a flop. It wasn't sucessful, yet not unsucessfull. It was average. (I'm talking about the money grose, not the picture. I loved the movie)
Just the opposite in my theatre. Narnia posters everywhere. There was also this huge Narnia cardboard thing that made you look like you were on the boat positioned front and center.
I think that the DVD sales for Dawn Treader will be better than those for Caspian. They're releasing it on DVD sooner.
My mistake. Britain was the biggest overseas haul for LWW, but Japan came in second.
Okay, on to my second point: I agree with what you're saying about not pandering to the religious fan base if you want commercial success. It's clear, in the way that they marketed VDT in America, that they grossly overestimated the role of the Christian audience in LWW's popularity here.
IMO, LWW got off to a strong start because so many people have fond memories of reading LWW and/or watching the cartoon. It had strong legs because it was an excellent movie, and it got great word of mouth.
Prince Caspian did not open as strongly for 3 reasons: The book isn't nearly as popular. In the intervening 2+ years, some of the movie-only fans had forgotten how much they loved LWW. And the May opening. It still had a very healthy opening, all things considered, due to those fans of LWW who hadn't forgotten.
However, the legs quickly fell out from under it. First of all, PC wasn't nearly as good of a movie as LWW. It could have benefited from smarter editing, among other things. Second of all, LWW fans were turned off by the fact that it didn't "feel" like Narnia. It was the kids from LWW running around in a pointless rip-off of Lord of the Rings. Basically, by the time PC had run it's course the Narnia film franchise had only a small fraction of it's fans left.
Walden, and Fox if they stay on, need to get wise to this. They need to market these films as though they are stand-alone. Convey a sense of the plot and the characters. The "Narnia" brand name won't get them anywhere. Neither will the Christian audience.
Let's start a campaign! 😀
In fact, I recomend this book to any Narnia fan
Please, please stop calling 'Prince Caspian' "a flop". This implies that the film did not perform well, when, in fact, it performed *spectacularly*, given that it is based on such a relatively uneventful book that only a fraction of the audience from the previous film even knew existed. Not to mention the major league competition it faced that summer.
No. You see, 'Prince Caspian' cost far, far, faaaaaaar too much money. End of story.
That does NOT, necessarily, make it anything even close to "a flop". From the *production* end, yes, it was a financial catastrophe fueled by greed and woefully unrealistic expectations. Two studios (well, at least one mouse-eared one) decided they could equate seven Narnia books with seven 'Wardrobe's. That is *not* reality, in any sense. 'Prince Caspian' was never, *ever* going to make 'Wardrobe' money, and to *increase* its budget by 25% was *crazy*.
Expectations need to be adjusted accordingly, money needs to be spent wisely, and the films MUST be better than this. There's your recipe for success.
at least SOMEBODY will- thank you!
he called my comment stupid – a pox on his house! and may his ears be filled with camel fleas!
if they were smart they would tell us how much they need to make domestically then we can go out and get it done-
sure you can, pevensies die painlessly int he blink of an eye,they didin't even know what hit them. and kids of today have seen 50 thousand murders on tv by age 12, so its not like kids of today are sheltered. plus they get to heaven at the end. all kids have played murder videogames today- its not a shock. not to mention all the murders in fairytales-
does anyone here remember the gross for a little self financed movie called the passion of the christ? the one that pandered to the christians? yeah, go check out mel's bank account with the billions of dollars. that's the potential when you DO pander to the christian audience with a film that IS christian. they WILL MOBILIZE. JUST LIKE THEY DID WITH LWW. you give them some watered down poo like PC and they have no reason to mobilize. This was a highly spiritual and blatantly spiritual christian book. this was the WRONG book to secularize. This could have been the wizard of oz of christian literature if they kept the obvious christian edge and mobilized the christain fanbase. the NEXT book, SC is the one they could direct towards secular audences and fanboys and fantasy fans.
I read tons that are practically dripping with venom. These people have a bug up their butts with their issues and they take it out on the christian movies.lots of times they spend half of the review spewing about christianity and barely even address the movie. and how many critics laughed in glee that potter trounced narnia? as if they have anything to do with each other. why not compare potter to Tangled, for instance? pure predjudice.
I haven't gone to the cinema to watch the VDT. I am waiting (almost on tip-toes) for it to be released in DVD. Anyone knows when it will be released? I hope to buy it then! I am sure others will which will make a good sale I think. I so want SC to come up. Puddle-glum is my favorite character in that book! For Narnia and for Aslan!
PC was NOT a flop. the audeince showed for a lesser known sequel in full force, they should have DROPPED the production budget for PC since it had less fans of the book and INCREASED the budget for marketing to aqquaint the audiences with it. They should have left it in DEC and they would have OWNED the christmas market for the next ten years! THEN, they made us wait 8 months to get the video!?! hello?? the money they made was substantial for a sequel, they just blew too much money making it to make a profit, and made crazy foolish decisions with their marketing stategy. WE THE FANS SUPPORTED IT!
ABSOLUTELY. and get a decent scriptwriter, that's the biggest battle.
you may have had an anti christian theatre manager who wanted it to flop=
Yes, but it isn't generally child protagonists getting killed. One of the reasons why murder-video games appeal to some people is that the victim is dehumanized. I remember my brother used to play Wolfenstein. The Pevensie are characters that children care about.
i couldn't get into it- SC_ what is it about it you like so much? just curious-
see my comment further down……
Me as well!!!!! I haunt the website now for news. SC is one of my favorites!!!
I believe the DVD will be out around Easter, here's the link to the NarniaWeb story where it was hinted at by Michael Flaherty from Walden Media: http://www.narniaweb.com/2010/12/dawn-treader-dvd-due-to-arrive-at-easter/
I too can't wait for the DVD release! Long live Aslan! 😀
Yes, I agree. I know hindsight is always 20/20 but they did go overboard with the pc budget. If it was not so expensive, then 419mil would not have been considered a disappointment. As much as I loved the landscapes of pc, I do think a damson got s bit carried away with filiming on location all over the world (at least according to the movie companion where they supposedly went to nz, Poland, Czech republic, Slovenia, etc.) I honestly think it would have been just as beautiful if he had saved money and did all of it in nz. It was vdt actually, that I expected them to film on location since there are so many islands. I do remember apted saying they were originally going to film in Malta nd Iceland which would have been amazing. I still loved vdt, but a part of me will always wish we could have had location shots instead of so much cgi. With sc I think the budget can be cut since there are no large battle scenes that I can recall or varied settings like in vdt. It is pretty much just the giants and the under land part.
Suffering Succotash
Yeah,let's wait for the greenlit of SC!!!
It will be wonderfuL.
Not just camel fleas!! his ears are filled with rotten eggs and mountains of earwax, dragon bogies and overdue feces, not to mention dead bugs and bits of fluff from decapitated pillows!!
how much dwas the budget for LWW again?? I forgot the number after being so concentrated on VDT.
The production budget for lww was 180mil
Well, I emailed Mark Johnson as well as Fox yesterday. This is what I sent:
"I had a question that Narnia fans have been dying to know the answer to. Considering that the Dawn Treader has been performing moderately well worldwide, and is just under $300 million (with Japan and China yet to open), has any move been taken to start the production of the Silver Chair or Magician's Nephew movies?"
from Mark Johnson:
"The status of another Narnia film is up in the air at the moment."
from Fox Publicist:
"Sorry we just don't know at this point…"
By these statements, we do know that they just haven't reached a decision yet. I'd say we'll get a statement in February, about the time that the Dawn Treader film comes out in Japan.
i believe that if they make all seven in the series, itll make at least 7 billion.
well, I can disconfirm that right now. I've emailed Fox just two days ago now, and they replied with:
Mark Johnson: "The status of another Narnia film is up in the air at the moment."
from Fox Publicist: "Sorry we just don’t know at this point…"
if I hear anything from anybody, I'll post it here. But there is reason to hope.
I thought everyone knew that facts to a fandom are like holy water to a vampire. "It burns!"
@Non-negotiable: I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on the definition of the word "flop."
No way. The Christmas holidays is the only reason this film did not bomb in the U.S. Prince Caspian had a good opening weekend but then disappeared rapidly because of all the summer competition. Because there evidently wasn't much interest (outside of the fan sites) in Dawn Treader prior to its release, even in the summer its opening weekend would have been weak. The difference is, in the summer the movie would have disappeared soon after opening. Because it was released in December, the holidays kept the movie in a truly large number of theaters for a long time, allowing the film to build up good word-of-mouth and for the news about it to get out. Thus, the overall domestic box office has been growing slowly, but fairly impressively.
Fox and Walden would be insane not to release the rest of the films before Christmas too, especially The Silver Chair, which has so much snow in it that it can be (somewhat) marketed as a Christmas movie. They just need to keep up with what they did this time in regard to Harry Potter; they need to make sure there is a three week gap between The Silver Chair and The Hobbit (getting out some publicity that plays up the friendship between Lewis and Tolkien might not be a bad idea either–they may even be able to get a bit of a boost from The Hobbit's buzz that way).
OH! Silver Chair is my favourite too!
Definitely my favorite book of the series as well!!!
I agree with Non-Negotiable Comment- either people have different definitions of the word 'flop' or some people need to look it up 😉
Still a long ways to go.
Domestic: $88,017,196
+ Foreign: $210,235,758
= Worldwide: $298,252,954
domestic needs to be above 100, i,l say it should be 110 and foreign 300, then silver chair will be made. the worldwide total would be 410, which is close to caspain .
I don't know if "probably" is entirely accurate. It *may* make it to $115 million, but that would be really pushing it. If you use 'Prince Caspian' as a low-end baseline, it had earned 89.45% of its domestic take after 25 days. That projects to a total of $98.4 million for 'Dawn Treader'. If you want to use 'Wardrobe' as the high-end baseline, it had only earned 77.37% of its domestic gross after the same time. That works out to $113.8 million for 'Dawn Treader'.
It's in the neighborhood, optimally, but not guaranteed, at all.
Definition of the word "flop" from Dictionary.com:
–verb (used without object)
1. to fall or plump down suddenly, esp. with noise; drop or turn with a sudden bump or thud (sometimes fol. by down ): The puppy flopped down on the couch.
2. to change suddenly, as from one side or party to another (often fol. by over ).
3. to be a complete failure; fail: The play flopped dismally.
4. Informal . to sleep or be lodged: to flop at a friend's house.
5. to swing loosely; bounce; flap: His long hair flops in his eyes when he runs.
–verb (used with object)
6. to drop with a sudden bump or thud: He flopped his books on a chair.
7. to dispose (oneself) in a heavily negligent manner: to flop oneself in a chair.
8. to invert (the negative of a photograph) so that the right and left sides are transposed.
–noun
9. an act of flopping.
10. the sound of flopping; a thud.
11. a failure: The new comedy was a flop.
12. Informal . a place to sleep; temporary lodging: The mission offered a flop and a free breakfast.
I saw it 6 times!
yes, they got BBC version's LWW, PC, VDT & SC, there is no other people that has seen Magician's Nephew, The Horse and His Boy and The Last Battle live-action movies yet, so after SC, I bet it will become a hit!
TMN, THAHB, SC, TLB will become a hit!
this is great! i just hope it doesn't decline even more. 🙁
me too!
6 times, I hoep ur int he US, cos we need that domestic to be above 100!. 🙂 tell your friends and enemies 🙂
Me five
um, i know this sounds REALLY stupid, but what does it mean when somethings "green-lit"? for some reason, when i hear that, i think of the white witch in the green mist tempting edmund. sorry :S i know that sounds really bad:)
i miss when LWW came out in 2005. there seemed to be a lot of advertising for that one and everyone was so excited, but probably because it was the first Narnia movie AND because it was everyone's favorite book. 🙁
i will admit, LWW IS pretty awsome, it's very artisticly done.
really? you should go to Regal, the place was,like, a Narniac's dream on the premier weekend. posters were EVERYWHERE and they were doing all this promotional stuff. i got an Aslan window cling 😀
awww, i love that book. that's how i found The Lion's Call website, and then, of course, i found NarniaWeb 😀
Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. Matthew 21:21
We can do it guys!