Posted on 05/18/2008 1:11:41 PM PDT by Dawnsblood
"The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian" dethroned "Iron Man" as ruler at the box office, pulling down $56.6 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.
The Walt Disney Co.'s action sequel took in less domestically in its opening weekend than "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe," which sold $65.6 million in North America in its debut weekend in December 2005. "Caspian" also raked in $20.7 million overseas.
But Disney expects the PG-rated movie, based on the C.S. Lewis fantasy series, to ride high through the coming Memorial Day weekend. The first "Narnia" tale grossed $745 million worldwide over its theatrical run.
"This is a film that we think is going to play all summer long and it's got nothing but school holidays in front of it," said Mark Zoradi, president of the Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture Group.
Disney is in pre-production on the third of the series, "The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader," set for release in the summer of 2010.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I just bought tickets for tonight.
Long. Boring. Hardly worth the effort to see. Wait for the DVD is my opinion.
Saw Iron Man last week and loved it. Don’t think I’ll see this. The only thing wrong with Iron Man was Gwyneth Paltrow. The WORST actress I’ve ever seen.
Awesome movie. The audience cheered at times. Go see it in the theater. :)
You obviously don't know me very well.
I took my family to see this movie last night. Excellent movie. The audience in clapped at the end, a rare enough occurence to be noteworthy.
Egad. Nothing personal. You look great in the trailers.
I took my daughter. It is real good.
I just watched Ebert & Roeper this morning. I don’t go along with everything Roeper and his guest buddy say, but from the preview clips I’ve seen so far, I’d tend to think they are pretty accurate when they describe this movie as having too many fights involving too many generic characters that the audience knows next to nothing about and doesn’t care about. They said that what took maybe a page or two in the original book has been stretched out to 10- or 15-minute CGI battles. Meanwhile, the development of the main characters suffered.
I’m not into fantasy too much anyway, so that’s another strike for me. But if enough human elements and character development were in it, I might go see a fantasy film anyway. Sounds like this isn’t it.
Ignore the detractors and malcontents. They probably like foreign films. You’ll love it.
I’ve got mixed feelings over this one Dawnsblood, on the one hand, CS Lewis was such a compelling writer and intellect, I’m quite happy to see his ideas and writings become movie successes..
On the other hand, the company that is making the lion’s share of profit holds all gay cruises and has Gay Weekends at it’s theme parks where stuff goes on that shocks the conscience..
I’m surprised you came away from the movie with that impression. It was exactly what it should have been for a children’s book. It was a little more lighthearted in a few places than I remember the book - but I loved it!
I knew it was long, but it didn’t feel quite as long as it was.
It was a little more “disney” than the previous one, I enjoyed it very much.
Conservative take on “Caspian”:
http://www.libertyfilmfestival.com/libertas/
scroll down to read review.
I second that!
I took my daughter to see it yesterday. We loved it!
I was under the impression that Disney’s gay pandering ended after Walt’s nephew Roy Disney led that stockholder’s revolt that got Eisner booted.
Haven’t seen “Prince Caspian” yet, but I won’t hear a word against “Iron Man.”
It stays surprisingly close to the spirit of the Marvel Comics original vision. Tony Stark is a bad boy genius inventor who has taken his Dad’s company to amazing heights. The important thing to us is that just as the original Tony Stark made his wonder weapons strictly to be used in the fight against godless communism so to does our hero mean for his killing machines to be used in the GWOT. Like the original, Stark is wounded and captured in an ambush while on a demonstration tour in the Near East and forced to labor for an evil warlord of nebulous affiliation. With the help of another captured scientist, he instead constructs the prototype of his suit and uses it to fight his way out. His new friend sacrifices his life to buy him time.
Director John Favreau is a crafty one (by the way he plays Stark’s driver, you’ll recognize him as the main character in 1995’s “Swingers”). He wants to sell tickets, not pander to his friends prejudices, but at the same time, he does not want to risk being Van Goughed either, so he walks a fine line. Tony Stark is a patriot and the U.S. military is the good guys. However, the middle-eastern baddies are not made islamists and an evil conspiracy at home accounts for his sighting of his company’s weapons being in the hands of the enemy. I won’t be spoiling anything if I mention Jeff Bridges does a great villain turn. Of course, any character named “Obadiah Stane” has to turn out evil.
For the life of me, I don’t know why so many people love to hate Gwyneth Paltrow. Yes, I’ve read a few interviews and she ain’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, plus she has all the usual lib opinions but she does a good enough job of playing a smart chick in the movies. Like her mother, she seems to be maturing gracefully.
Indeed. My apologies Prince.
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