Voyage of the Dawn Treader tops US box office

The latest chapter in the Chronicles of Narnia series has topped the US and Canada box office chart in its opening weekend, according to early figures.The Voyage of the Dawn Treader took $24.5m (£15.5m) between Friday and Sunday – much less than its 2005 and 2008 predecessors.However, 20th Century Fox said the film had taken $105.5m (£66.9m) globally.”We had a huge task ahead of us to resurrect this franchise,” said the studio’s head of distribution.”We really had our work cut out for us,” continued Chris Aronson of Fox, which took over the series after Disney dropped it.The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – the first film in the CS Lewis-inspired saga – took $65.6m (£41.6m) in its first weekend in 2005.Its follow-up Prince Caspian – also produced by Disney – managed $55m (£35m) when it opened three years later.According to Aronson, the aim was to “get movie-goers back to that feeling of affection they had for the first movie”.”I think they all had such a bad taste in their mouth from the last one,” he said.Meanwhile, Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie’s romantic thriller The Tourist opened at number two with $17m (£10.8m).Its distributor Sony described it as a “respectable opening” for a film featuring “two of the biggest stars in the world”.Last week’s chart-topper, Disney’s 3D animation Tangled, slipped to third place with $14.6m (£9.3m).Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 came in at four, with runaway train thriller Unstoppable at five.Ballet thriller Black Swan jumped seven places to number six, despite playing in just 90 cinemas in the US and Canada in its second weekend.Overall takings were down 3% on the same weekend last year, according to box office tracking website Hollywood.com – BBC