ROTTEN TOMATOES: "Narnia" Claims the Year's Final Weekend ... Barely

"Narnia" Claims the Year's Final Weekend ... Barely

by Scott Weinberg | January 03, 2006

The four-day estimates for New Year's Weekend (12/30 to 1/2) are in, and it seems that Disney's "The Chronicles of Narnia" has snatched the #1 spot back from "King Kong," if only by the slimmest of margins.

The "Chronicles" pulled in an estimated $32.8 million over the four-day frame, giving it a pretty impressive grand total of $224.8 million. Close in the Narinaical footsteps was the massive primate known as "King Kong," which made about $31.5 million in the same time-frame, giving Peter Jackson's epic adventure tale a total of $174.3 million to date.

Third, fourth, and fifth place went to a trio of late-season comedies: Jim Carrey's "Fun with Dick and Jane" made about $21 miliion ($64.5m total), Steve Martin's "Cheaper by the Dozen 2" did $19.3 million ($55.1m total), and Jennifer Aniston's "Rumor Has It..." settled for $11.6 million ($26.7m total).

The first weekend of 2006 sees the release of some wildly varying little flicks. Uwe Boll's "BloodRayne," Eli Roth's "Hostel," and the stoner comedy "Grandma's Boy" will battle for a piece of the early-January box office pie.

As always, you can check out some more numbers at the Rotten Tomatoes Box Office Page. (And Happy New Year to all!)

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(1-11 of 11 posts) | Reply

puablo writes:
on Jan 03 2006 08:10 AM

[b]Great![/b]
I read this elsewhere, and I think both films deserve their take. Kong has made just shy of $400 mil worldwide so it has recouped its expenses and has turned a tidy profit, I haven't seen an international tally for Narnia (not sure how many countries have it yet) but hopefully that film will continue to rake in the cash. 2005 was such a weak year so it's good to see that two of the better movies are as successful as they deserve to be.

(Reply to this)

ShasR writes:
on Jan 03 2006 11:44 AM

[b]hold up, wait a minute[/b]
actually neither movie has shown a profit yet. King Kong with its $207 mil production budget as well as, its huge marketing campaign needs to make $600 million worldwide before it shows a profit. Narnia needs to make $340 million to show a profit. KK should show a profit as it seems heading for a $725 million woroldwide total end the end of its run, according to estimates, and Narnia should blow past its costs at the end of this month.

(Reply to this)

Merlin235 writes:
on Jan 03 2006 11:50 AM

[b]Interested[/b]
I would be very interested to know what percentage of money a production company gets of box office ticket sales, and off of DVD sales. It'd be much easier to know when a movie makes a profit knowing those two things.

(Reply to this)

dracus writes:
on Jan 03 2006 12:00 PM

In reply to this comment (#829425)
Profits? Maybe not by North American standards �YET�, but in case you haven�t noticed there are 6 other continents in the world and Kong has already made over $400 million worldwide in less than 3 weeks. I think it�s safe to say that both Kong and Narnia will make a tidy profit for each studio long before their DVD bonanza that will double their worldwide take. And if you�ve seen Kong, it should be obvious by the storyline that an extended version will follow it's intial DVD release which will rake in another large bag of cash.

(Reply to this)

lovelykeira writes:
on Jan 03 2006 12:17 PM

Let's go Kong. I'm looking forward to Munich expanding and for Grandma's Boy to open up.

(Reply to this)

cabezone writes:
on Jan 03 2006 03:34 PM

In reply to this comment (#829427)
Extended King Kong? They need to have a special "cut" addition so the movie is 30 minutes shorter. It was a good film, but all of the scenes seemed to drag on too long. Including the action sequences.

(Reply to this)

skletonkee writes:
on Jan 03 2006 04:19 PM

In reply to this comment (#829429)
[b]here here!![/b]
there was far too much fat in that film. and we aint talkin 'bout the sh*t jackson exised himself of either.

(Reply to this)

The Senhman writes:
on Jan 03 2006 08:26 PM

Yeah, King Kong needs to be shorter, not longer. I stilled think it's the best popcorn movie of 2005 though.

Also, Narnia isn't that much cheaper than Kong. It cost $180M! Where did the profitability marks of $340M (Narnia) and $600M (Kong) come from?

(Reply to this)

thatdude123 writes:
on Jan 03 2006 08:30 PM

In reply to this comment (#829426)
The way that DVD's are selling and renting now, they can easily equal or pass the totals set by their box-office. Batman Begins made $205 million in North American Box Office. It went ahead and made a further $185 million in DVD sales. And that's before you add international sales, that were huge since the movie was overshadowed by Star Wars and Madagasgar in some countries at release.

Currently, the King Kong production diaries are among the top ten selling DVD's in over 20 countries. Then you have to add to that the truckloads of special editions that peter jackson loves, with possibly both an extended and shortened editions. There's really a chance that with all the merchandise they have already passed the profit quota.

On the other hand this is a Disney DVD were dealing with when it comes to Narnia. Disney hold every imaginable DVD record, since they are what we come to know as Baby-sitter films (that's great movies that distract children for any amount of time between 90 - 150 minutes). And since they are using the fact that its a Literary masterpiece to their advantage, quite like Harry Potter, they will sure sell enough to pass profit quotas not only on DVDs but in the box office easily.

Remember also that Harry Potter had a delayed release in many countries, and is still driving away audiences from those two films in many countries, since it is currently the world's most profitable franchise.

(Reply to this)

fishoutofwater writes:
on Jan 04 2006 05:34 AM

Yay Go Disney! :D

(Reply to this)

ShasR writes:
on Jan 24 2006 11:00 AM

[b]Sorry Senh Deung[/b]
But u seem to know nothing about about movies. the 180 and 207 million budgets for Chronicles of Narnia and King Kong respectively are JUST the money spent on making the movie. additional money is spent, tons more than what it cost to make, to market the movies to audience, to distribute the movie to theatres across the globe and other promotional tie-ins such as with mcdonalds or burger king etc. harry potter for example cost just 150 to make but need 308 million to score a profit because of world wide marketing and such. thats a preety low figure for a big movie cus the movie already has a built in audience so there's no need in heavy marketing. King Kong did alot of marketing and so did CoN, if u dont believe me jus switch to disney channel [yes i no its a disney movie] and even cuple of minutes u'll see a 5 minute bit on the movie., its quite annoying really..anyway i think i've made my point.

(Reply to this)

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