Early ‘Prince Caspian’ opening box office numbers

The $100 million ‘The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian’ is not living up to expectations. Friday box office numbers indicate an estimated $55 million for the whole opening weekend, while tracking numbers had ‘Prince Caspian’ beating the $65.5 million opening by ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.’

The Disney’s fantasy only made $19.3 million this Friday, which must make Aslan a sad little Lion. It won’t make ‘Prince Caspian’ a total failure or box office flop, but these aren’t reassuring numbers for the sequels. ‘The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader’ is already in production for 2010 however, so the family will have at least one more chance to prove itself.

‘Prince Caspian’ is regarded by fans as one of the worst in the series. Many critics have mentioned the darker tone of the movie, which may have scared away some of the Christian community. ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ made $23 million on its Friday opening.

Looking at the older movies, ‘Iron Man,’ ‘What Happens in Vegas’ and ‘Speed Racer’ respectively did $8.6, $4.6 and $2.0 million. Some very healthy numbers for ‘Iron Man’ and ‘What Happens in Vegas.’ We’ve seen ‘Iron Man’ dropping pretty hard last weeks, especially after the weekend, but it’s holding up for another $30 million against ‘Prince Caspian.’