There was no question The Golden Compass was going to be the biggest movie this weekend. The question was, how big would it be? Given the film's massive media blitz and names like Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig attached, one would have expected the movie to perform pretty well. No doubt New Line was counting on it, what with the $180 million they spent to get Pullman's children's fantasy story to the screen. Few people would probably have imagined the movie would get such an icy financial reception.
I have to admit I expected it to do better. With only $26 million over the weekend, it ranks as one of the lowest openings for a big-budget children's fantasy book adaptation, just beating out last year's abysmal Eragon which took in just $23 million in its first weekend. I fully expected The Golden Compass to arrive somewhere closer to the $40 million mark, but it could very well be that America is showing some fatigue over all these fantasy flicks.
The question that must now be addressed by the folks at New Line is what to do with the other two stories left in the "His Dark Materials" trilogy. The Golden Compass has set a pretty high standard in the way of cast and budget. Historically, fantasy franchises tend to get more and more expensive as they go along while making less and less money. If Compass disappears quickly (which is very likely to happen in the face of other holiday fare rolling out in the next few weekends) New Line will take a heavy financial hit and the prospect of losing money on two more movies might be a tough sell.
All eyes will be on the studio to see if they'll gamble on finishing the story or if they'll cut their losses and run. The sting has to be especially painful for director Chris Weitz who crafted a movie that suffers from a choppy storyline that spends too much time setting up the future movies and too little time being a movie that is itself interesting to watch. Without the next two films, this first one is pretty much an artistic waste of time.
New movies which fell in the category of smaller release showed real promise this weekend. The critically acclaimed Atonement, which has already banked over $30 million in foreign markets, saw the inside of American theaters for the first time this weekend. It rolled in nearly a million dollars on just 32 screens for an impressive $25,000 per theater. Indie golden child Juno topped that with $60,000 per screen in just 7 theaters. Both movies will test the waters further with slightly wider releases next week.
WEEKEND BOX OFFICE TOP TEN December 7 - 9, 2007
LW = Last Week WR = Weeks Released THTRS = Number of Screens * Denotes new release. Click on title to read CB Review
Comment on “Weekend Box Office - The Golden Compass”
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The books just aren't that big in the US. The hype surrounding them is huge, but the number of kids who have actually read them are a tiny fraction of the number who have read Harry Potter, Narnia, or LotR. There was just not enough of a fanbase. Lemony Snicket had the same problem.
Do Movie Critics ever go outdoors ?
We had major snow & ice storms over half the country ... 400,000 people lost power. Despite poor weather, I went & saw movie. It is a very good ... the kind we all like go to the theater for.
Another reason for reduced attendance to ALL movies this season is lack of promotion on late night talk shows due to writers strike... ( all reruns ) This has historically been a very important marketing venue for new movies.
Thank you movie reviewer. I think this review is a bit pessimistic. I hope the amount of people watching it will pick up this weekend. I loved the books so much and I want to see a second and third made especially cause i need to see who'll they'll choose for Will.
And to some of the reviewers, a LOT of people read the books. Yeah they're not as popular as harry potter but come on lol like, DUH. HP grosses an unmatchable amount of readers. Golden Compass is a very popular book, you're just not considering it popular because it doesn't match the amount that read LOTR and HP?? That's just stupid. Besides you don't need to have read the books to see the movies.
And to the person above me, could you be anymore obnoxious? Why are people always rooting for other people to fail, I'll never understand it.
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December 9th, 2007 at 22:06
People are TIRED of all the crap hollywood makes!