Thursday
15May2008
Fearless Forecast - A Princely Sum for 'Caspian'
Thursday, May 15, 2008 at 2:38PM
Iron Man's impressive streak as the number one
movie will end just shy of the film collection dollar number 200 million. I'm
not sure how many movies have cleared $200 million while they were number one at
the box office, but it's a short list of candidates.
This weekend, however, belongs to
Prince Caspian. We tend to forget how massive
the worldwide audience was for
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. How about
nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars for the first Narnia flick,
almost $300 million of which was generated from U.S. ticket sales.
In the long run, I don't think Caspian will
perform quite as well, though sequels of this magnitude usually outpace the
first film; The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe opened in December, so
it had less major league competition to deal with than does Caspian.
Still, by the end of the Memorial Day weekend, it ought to be past $150 million
in the U.S., and will most likely be the quietest $200 million movie this
summer.
Prince Caspian opens unopposed this weekend, as
does
Indiana Jones next weekend, so there will
really only be three movies raking in cash between now an May 29th: Caspian,
Indy, and Iron Man. But this is really the Narnia sequel's
best chance to cash in, because Indiana Jones will change everything. So
how will it fare? Very well. Maybe not an Iron Man-like $104 million, but
then again, the Thursday before Iron Man was released, nobody pegged nine
figures for it, either.
The Top Five:
1 - Prince Caspian ($91 million)
2 - Iron Man ($28 million)
3 - What Happens in Vegas... ($11 million)
4 - Speed Racer ($9 million)
5 - Made of Honor ($6 million)
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