Box Office Forecast: The Chronicles Of Narnia Expected To Easily Secure The Top Spot

This weekend is The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader’s weekend to lose. The third installment of the series has a major leg up, hitting almost 800 more theaters than its competition, The Tourist. While The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is quite the expansive project and Fox is hoping for some big returns, there’s certainly a chance this could be Prince Caspian all over again. On a $225 million budget, Caspian managed to make $55 million opening weekend, but then fell fast, only accumulating $141.6 million by the end of its domestic run, significantly less than its predecessor, which ended up with a total of $291.7 million. In terms of its opening weekend, Dawn Treader will likely have a tough time even with the 3D ticket price boost and, in the long run, fall fast and surrender to the upcoming holiday competition.

With massive stars like Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp on the roster, The Tourist could take in a nice chunk of cash, but certainly not enough to steal that top spot from The Dawn Treader. Jolie’s Salt opened with $36 million, but even with Depp by her side, The Tourist will likely fall in the $20 to $25 million range. On the HSX.com market, The Tourist is down 3.54 points and only selling at $69.30 a share compared to The Voyage of the Dawn Treader’s $106.76 value.

Even though Tangled snagged the top spot from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I last weekend, Potter has been beating it on a daily basis ever since. Potter looks as though it’ll take the third position, followed by Tangled in the fourth and then Burlesque in the fifth. The rest of the list will likely be quite similar to last week with each film dropping two positions to make room for the newcomers except for Megamind, which is losing a whopping 748 theaters.

While they may not make it into the top ten, the films to keep an eye on are the limited releases – 127 Hours, The King’s Speech and The Fighter. All Oscar contenders, this bunch should post impressive per theater averages. However, it’s Black Swan that could steal a top ten spot from a wide release. Last weekend, in just 18 theaters, the film managed to pull in an unbelievable $1.4 million with an incredible $80,212 per theater average. The film is expanding to 90 theaters, so even if that average falls the slightest bit to let’s say, $60,000, we’re still looking at a possible $5 million intake.

So where does all this leave us? Here are the Shockya.com Predictions:

1. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

2. The Tourist

3. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I

4. Tangled

5. Burlesque

6. Unstoppable

7. Love and Other Drugs

8. Black Swan

9. Faster

10. Due Date

By Perri Nemiroff (via Box Office Mojo, HSX.com)