Indiana Jones opens today (and I'm not there! O, the pain!), so, before it disappears completely, I thought I'd weigh in with my opinion as to why Prince Caspian fell short of domestic box office expectations.
Really, I could have saved everybody a ton of cash and trouble years ago. The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe is a beloved classic. A beloved, self-contained classic, I might add. The Narnia books don't lend themselve to franchise-dom, though, because you can't follow characters through the whole series, so all you have is the magic of Narnia, which, let's just be honest here, C.S. Lewis didn't really have the chops to create an alternate world compelling enough to visit multiple times.
Also, the rest of the Narnia books bloooooooowwwww. I read them all and just barely remember there was something cool in The Silver Chair with a labyrinth or something, and there were magic rings in The Magician's Nephew. That's it.
Not surprising, I guess, given C.S. Lewis's deficiencies as a fantasy writer (He was also a horrible science fiction writer but apparently quite a good Christian aplogist, which I can't speak to since I didn't read any of those) and also considering if you set out to write some sneaky Christian allegory and lead with the religion's money shot, the crucifixion and resurrection, well, that just doesn't leave you much good material to work with. So you start with a really cool, magical book and then lead into a bunch of stilted, dull-as-dishwater sequels.
Daughter #1 and I attempted to read The Horse and His Boy a while back. "Do we have to read this?" she said, "It's sooooo boring!"
"It certainly is," I replied, and placed it back on the shelf where it remains to this day.
So Prince Caspian made a bunch of cash, but less than the first one. But they'll probably make another one, and it will make about twenty bucks, and they'll abandon the whole enterprise long before they get to The Last Battle.
