Box Office Update and Earthquakes

I haven’t updated you on how Dawn Treader is doing at the Box Office. Last time (in $300 Million Dollar Thoughts on January 5th) I said that they had earned 300 million dollars worldwide. This was way less than LWW or PC made the same time in their run. But word of mouth has been spreading, and Dawn Treader is steadily receiving more and more money through the box office.

The last country to open The Dawn Treader was Japan, on Feb 25. You can read more about the premiere and promotion here and here. Japan was Prince Caspian’s largest foreign market, so hopes were high that VDT would raise a lot of money in Japan. Three days after it premiered in the Japanese theatres, VDT passed Prince Caspian's foreign gross of $278 million, Dawn Treader's foreign total being $284 million.

Then disaster struck.

A huge tsumani and earthquake hit the northeast part of Japan, destroying miles and miles of land and killing hundreds. Repercussions were even felt in Western North America in the form of big waves wrecking Brookings, OR and Crescent City, CA. There were also large wind storms all throughout Oregon, knocking down trees and damaging power lines, putting many (including my family) out of power for days.

While all of this is tragic and heartbreaking, we Narnia fans realized something else. This could have a bad effect on the Box Office numbers for Dawn Treader and other movies that had just opened in Japan. If Dawn Treader doesn’t do well its last leg, it could be a deciding factor concerning future Narnia movies! In a way, the Narnia franchise itself was shaken by an earthquake.

Then some good news: On March 13, we heard that Dawn Treader had crossed the 400 million mark, thanks to Japan. Fox and Walden have started talking about Narnia 4 (which is going to be MN, more news on that later), which is very exciting! Last week I heard that Dawn Treader had passed $410 million! Even with Japan’s disaster! The film everyone had declared would sink because of its opening weekend numbers, is sailing slowly and surely ever east, and it may even pass Prince Caspian’s Box Office score of $417 million.