It's useless to deny it. People are seeing the film and not just some but lot of people given its rather small release (just over 600 screens) which has bloomed to far larger (now over 2000 screens) than the studio had anticipated. The film is
nearing $100 million worldwide. It's not on the level of Narnia's success but one is a PG family film drawn on a well known set of books with a large budget and major studio. The other is an R-rated art-house film about a ridiculed subject.
By various accounts (even by folks pre-disposed to like the subject matter) the film is boring and tedious like some other Ang Lee projects. Some like NBC Today's Show movie critic Gene Shalit have seen the film as involving a sexual predator rather than as a love story. While his review was quite justifiable by the film's content itself, he was attacked by the "gay mafia" and ultimately apologized for his characterization.
I have not seen another movie get so much free press than any other film since "The Last Temptation of Christ", which was a total bomb. Without this free, constant, press drumbeat to see it, no one would waste their time on this film. Narnia OTOH was ridiculed by certain parts of the press (Polly Toynbee, etc.) and did not have even a smidgeon of the exposure this crap has. For the most part, from what I have heard, this is a bore and mediocre movie that is getting fast tracked by the Hollywood gay mafia who want to push their deviant agenda.
By contrast 20 years ago, "Platoon" was the highest grossing movie at $140 million, which was 1986 dollars.