Amidst all the controversy and debate on The Movie Blog around the length of King Kong (over 3 hours), I made a little prediction on the Audio Edition that although Kong debuted at #1 on it’s opening weekend (knocking out The Chronicles of Narnia which was #1 the previous week), that Narnia would catch up and pass Kong in subsequent weeks. People said I was crazy because Narnia was a week older than Kong and because Kong was going to just plain dominate it anyway.
I maintained that although it was going to make a HUGE amount of money, Kong was too long for some people (which would keep some people away) and that it limited itself due to only being able to show once per night per screen. On the other hand, Narnia was a kids friendly film with a seasonal theme and almost 40 minutes shorter than Kong. Still… people said I was crazy. Well guess what…
Narnia has passed King Kong for the #1 spot at the box office again.
It’s becoming clear now that the studios estimate of King Kong making $300 million domestically (North America) just isn’t going to happen. After it’s 3rd weekend in release (a 4 day weekend too), Kong has pulled in $174 million (terrific numbers by almost anyone elses standards). But with it’s weekend numbers already in the $20 million range, and stronger films preparing to open, the $300 million mark is just too far out of reach. Maybe $240 million.
What’s an even bigger surprise is the success of The Chronicles of Narnia. It made $33.7 million in it’s four weekend in release and now sits with $225.7 million in total. I don’t think anyone saw those kinds of numbers coming. I expect it to hit $270 – $275 million when all is said and done. Which is fine with me because Narnia is a better film than Kong (in my opinion anyway), even though I have Kong on my 10 best films of 2005 list.
So what do you think? Does this surprise you? Can King Kong get enough repeat business to catch up to Narnia?
