Although you can view the daily box office in the left sidebar since today, we didn’t want to miss out on the weekend graph. What happened? In short, ‘The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian’ disappointed. The industry was expecting it at least to beat its prequel, which made $65.5 in its opening weekend. Some even said it would do $80 million. But as it turns out, people weren’t that crazy about Caspian, since it only made $57 million. Not bad, but with its budget rumored to be between $100 and $200 million, its opening weekend could have been a tad higher.

If it wasn’t for ‘Speed Racer,’ ‘Prince Caspian’ might have made some ‘loser headlines.’ But as we can see in the graph above, Narnia is doing amazing compared to ‘Speed Racer.’ The flashy movie didn’t even manage to top $30 million in the US after two weekend. Now it’s the question if people will remember the Wachowski brothers for ‘The Matrix’ or ‘Speed Racer.’ Can the success of one make up for the failure of the other?

‘Iron Man’ and ‘What Happens in Vegas’ both had another good weekend, with respectively $31.2 and $13.9 million. ‘What Happens in Vegas’ has already topped $40 million in the US, $5 million more than its budget.

Last week we already found out how the ‘Speed Racer’ tracking numbers indicated a miserable opening, but Warner Bros. doesn’t necessarily see it this way. They’re not only giving the funky movie a $6 million push in the UK, they’ve also planned a $100 million marketing campaign worldwide, in addition to $100 million in promotional deals with 53 partners like McDonalds.

In reaction to the low tracking, Warner’s marketing president Sue Kroll said, “We’ve been talking about this a lot internally. There is a disconnect between how people react to the film and what the tracking is indicating.” But there’s no question about the mediocre reception of the critics either.

Continue reading Warner naive about ‘Speed Racer’ tracking?

Warner Bros better get that ‘Speed Racer’ marketing campaign into action, because the $100 million Wachowski Brothers movie is set for an opening at $35 million max next week. The family picture is currently tracking behind ‘Prince Caspian,’ the new Narnia movie, which is even releasing a week later.

‘Un-Aided Awareness’ for ‘The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian’ is 9%, while ‘Speed Racer’ does 8% just a week before its release. ‘Definite Interest’ is 44% for Narnia and 32% for ‘Speed Racer.’ And lastly, ‘First Choice’ is 17% for Narnia, with just 4% for ‘Speed Racer.’

I may not be the target audience for this Warner Bros blockbuster, but I have to agree with the tracking numbers. The trailer didn’t get me into this movie at all. It looks like they wanted to make a ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ racer, but without the fun.