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I gotta pipe in here just to keep things honest. Let's not exaggerate the international success of Compass. They'll probably end up with about $300M if it performs very well in Japan once it finally opens there. The league they're playing in, a bonafide international smash is like $500M plus. On the other hand, ~$70M domestic is disappointing, but hardly a complete flop.
Stardust didn't break the bank overseas either -- just under $100M. Elizabeth: The Golden Age is Oscar bait, not the kind of movie meant to do big business here or overseas. Within the past decade, LotR, Harry Potter, and Narnia have all done, as Variety would say, boffo box office domestically, and mid-range fantasy fare like Eragon and Bridge to Terabithia and the like have performed respectably.
I'd even lump in the bank-breaking Pirates franchise as another fantasy franchise that's done well. It has all the elements -- swords and sorcery, weird monsters, and so on.
I just don't see any real evidence for a sea-change in American appetite for fantasy, nor a contrasting ravenous appetite for "sophisticated" fantasy overseas.
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