Iron Man Kills the Prince!

Prince Caspian opened in the US over the weekend to a disappointing US$56M (Compared to US$66M for the first Narnia film).  Some film sites are claiming that audiences have had enough of fantasy as witnessed with the poor performance of The Golden Compass last year.

As for me, I’m putting it down to one thing: Iron Man.  In the lead up to Iron Man’s release Hollywood analysts were predicting it would bomb due to being released the same week as GTA4, but rather that either the game or the movie affecting each other, they both went on to exceed expectations.

So now we come to Iron Man’s third weekend with it still pulling in the punters to the tune of US$31M and a total so far of almost US$225M.

Imagine what could have happened if Iron Man had dropped off and only taken around US$15M, that would have left an extra US$16M to go round, and if only US$10M had gone to Caspian, no one would be worried that it had ‘under performed.’

So did Iron Man ‘over perform’ or is Narnia in trouble?  Only time will tell.  If Caspian has the legs it could still rake in enough dollars to keep Disney happy, but this will depend on two main factors:  Will Iron Man still be pulling the punters next week, and can Caspian hold up against the new Indiana Jones movie?