The real reason we'll never see a sequel
I've not seen this film since it came out in 2007 but as an avid fan of the books, I remember being fairly disappointed with it on the whole. The effects and some of the performances were great, but thematically it was compromised an awful lot due to the meddling of the studio in response to concerns from religious groups etc. This much is established.
Anyway I re-read the books recently and it made me think of this film again. I always thought it'd flopped massively and this, coupled with religious protestations etc, led to New Line canning any possibility of a sequel forever. However, reading more about the release and reaction to the film, it seems that financial mismanagement and poor foresight from New Line is the real reason it'll never see a sequel.
The world-wide box office take from this movie was around $372m, compared to a budget of $180m. This is clearly a success, even if not a humongous success -- but doubling your initial stake is a success by any margin. But I found this crucial line on Wikipedia:
Overseas rights to the film were sold to fund the $180 million production budget for the film, so most of these profits did not go to New Line
So there you have it. The real reason this film will never see a sequel is because New Line banked all of their hopes upon the US performance of the movie, and flogged off the overseas rights, thinking that they'd make plenty of cash from the US market. Big mistake, and one that's pretty hard to swallow. The US is one of the most staunchly Christian countries in the developed world, and given the controversy whipped up by religious groups over this film, is it any wonder that its take was lower there?
It's all very disappointing, particularly when Chris Weitz said he was going to be much less compromising with the sequels initially.
Anyway I just thought I'd put that out there. This film wasn't a box-office bomb, in fact its international box-office performance was described as "stellar". New Line screwed the pooch. Maybe one day another studio will recognise the potential behind this amazing story.
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