All film studios want to find their own Lord of the Rings/Harry Potter franchise. Disney (NYSE: DIS), for example, seems to be headed on the right track with its Narnia brand. Viacom (NYSE: VIA) made a solid effort that past weekend by releasing The Spiderwick Chronicles to the mass multiplex marketplace — unfortunately, things didn’t turn out so well, at least as I’m seeing it.

According to Boxofficemojo, Spiderwick is in a battle with Disney’s Step Up 2 the Streets for moment place. The latter is right now estimated to have grossed $19.7 million for the three-day weekend of February 15 through February 17; the former has just by $19 million to its credit. So, Spiderwick could exit its current third-place showing and move up in the rankings, but it won’t catch up to the big winner,

News Corp.’s (NYSE: NWS) Jumper. I’ll tell you, I had no notion that one was going to “jump” — what a horrible, horrible pun, huh? — to the top of the box office charts that weekend with a $27 million take.

Final numbers will be coming later nowadays, and we’ll get a better indication of how all the movies did once Monday’s holiday figures are added; plus, the moment weekend is always the final tell. But, as of now, I don’t think Viacom’s Spiderwick fantasy — which is distributed by Paramount and is co-branded with Nickelodeon Movies — will approach the profitable prestige of Time Warner’s (NYSE: TWX) Potter property. Better luck next instance.

Original post by Steven Mallas

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