'Dawn Treader' Treads Water Over Slow Weekend
Sunday, December 12, 2010 at 6:28PM
KenPierce in Box Office, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, Movies, News, Tangled, The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Tourist, Unstoppable

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader opened with a weak $24.5 million at the box office.  This was enough to top a weak weekend, but compared very poorly with other films in the Chronicles of Narnia series.  The third film in the series, Dawn Treader is budgeted at $155 million.  The series was picked up by 20th Century Fox after original distributor Disney dropped the franchise following an underwhelming $141.6 million domestic gross for the second film in the series (Prince Caspian) measured against a $225 million production budget.  Worldwide grosses and home video helped Prince Caspian into the black, and it looks like that will be the case with Dawn Treader, as well.  The film grossed $88 million overseas, easily outpacing what it grossed domestically over its opening weekend.

The Tourist, starring Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie, also opened weakly in second place, with $17 million in grosses measured against a $100 million budget.  The marketing for the film appeared to not connect with audiences, although word of mouth has been relatively strong for the film, so it could hold up well over the coming holidays.

Disney's Tangled fell to third place, bringing in $14.6 million in its third weekend.  With a 32% drop week-over-week, the film has grossed $115.6 million to date.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 continued the expected fall of a mega-budgeted tentpole production, falling 50% in its fourth weekend for a fourth place finish of $8.5 million.  The film will see an undoubted boost in its grosses over the coming Christmas holidays, and has grossed a respectable $257.7 million so far.

Finally, fifth place went to Unstoppable, which continued to hold well after five weekends in wide release.  The film about a runaway train has grossed $74.2 million against a $100 million budget after bringing in another $3.75 million this weekend.

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