'Narnia' Crosses $580 Million at Global Box Office

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – With its fourth consecutive weekend atop the foreign box office, "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe" crossed the $580 million mark glob-ally, and is increasingly inspiring talk of a new film franchise. Disney's adaptation of the C.S. Lewis classic earned an estimated $20.1 million overseas last weekend, pushing its international tally to $319 million (the domestic total stands at $261.4 million). Since the film covers material from just two of the seven vol-umes of C.S. Lewis "The Chronicles of Narnia" books, there is plenty of material for future "Narnia" screen adaptations, according to David Kornblum, vp international theatrical sales and distribution at Dis-ney's Buena Vista Intl. unit.

• The film had its opening weekend in Turkey – which, along with Poland and Russia, is becoming an increasingly strong market for the Hollywood majors – grossing $890,000.
• In its sixth weekend in the UK, "Narnia" pulled $2.4 million, taking its local total to a robust $70.7 mil-lion.
• In Poland, "Narnia" drew a strong $1 million, No. 1 for a second weekend; its total there is $3.1 million.
• In Australia, the fourth weekend drew $1.8 million, for a total of $21.6 million.
• In its third weekend in South Korea, a market that largely prefers action titles, "Narnia" drew $1.6 million for a local tally of $12 million. Disney expects that within a week, the film will pass "Pirates of the Caribbean" as the company's biggest live action grosser in South Korea.

The international arena's second biggest grosser this weekend was "King Kong, which yielded an esti-mated $15 million from 57 territories, for a 32-day international total of $296 million. The Peter Jackson remake had a strong opening in China, $3.1 million (surpassing "War Of The Worlds" as Universal's big-gest China opening), and rebounded two places to No. 3 in Britain with $2.3 million. While "Kong" slipped in Spain and Germany and is tailing off in Brazil, it maintained its No. 1 spot in Jackson's native New Zea-land with a 33-day total of $5.3 million. "Harry Potter and the Goblet Of Fire" wound down its international run with a weekend tally of $6.6 million in 56 markets. The foreign total now stands at $582.5 million.