The holiday season is upon us, and for the box-office, that usually means at least one fantasy film, one chick flick, a couple of kid’s flicks and a bunch of Oscar films battling it out for the audiences. Like “The Lord of the Rings” series and “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe” from the past few years, “Eragon” is another fantasy book adaptation making its way to the big screen, although its popularity pales in comparison to the others mentioned. With not even a third the hype “Narnia” or “Rings” received and a really late marketing push, will “Eragon” break out? Here are the box-office prospects.

Release Date
With no Peter Jackson film being released this year, his favorite weekend to release a film has been taken over by “Eragon.” Usually the third weekend in December and generally the weekend before schools close for the holidays, this weekend tends to be quite a strong place to release a high-profile film such as “Eragon.” “King Kong” opened to $50.1m on this weekend last year ($66.2m in five days), which was considered disappointing at the time. “Lemony Snickets: A Series of Unfortunate Events,” another book adaptation, opened on this weekend to a solid $30.1m, lower than the general opening we’re used to, but still very good. “Lord of the Rings” dominated the third weekend in December from 2001-2003, with openings in the $48-72m range. And, with a December release date comes extremely strong opening-to-total multipliers, thanks to the holidays. “Eragon’s” appeal to kids gives it an extra advantage to make possibly four or five times its opening weekend (although it won’t probably reach those heights considering the heavy competition). “Eragon” couldn’t have picked a better release date outside of the summer.

Box-Office Effect: Positive

Competition
Despite an excellent release date, the number of high-profile films this holiday season is more than normal, with no major $200m grossing film scaring films away. “Eragon” doesn’t have to worry about the films opened before it releases. “Blood Diamond,” “Apocalypto,” “The Holiday,” “Casino Royale” and “Happy Feet” should all pull in solid numbers throughout the month, but they shouldn’t hurt “Eragon” as much as the new competition will. “Eragon” opens against “Charlotte’s Web,” which is likely to pull in strong numbers (after all, it is one of the most popular children’s book of all-time), and “The Pursuit of Happyness,” starring one of the biggest box-office draws today, Will Smith. “Eragon” isn’t even guaranteed a #1 opening, considering that “Charlotte’s Web” will be fighting for some of the same audiences, plus more. “Charlotte’s Web” is a bigger threat throughout the holidays, though. Opening weekend, it might not open to huge numbers, but it should be the leggiest film of the holiday season, by far. “The Pursuit of Happyness” shouldn’t hit “Eragon” that hard, but it still looks to steal some adult audiences. Furthermore, “Night at the Museum” is also a huge threat to “Eragon.” “Eragon,” “Night at the Museum,” and “Charlotte’s Web” don’t have the exact same audiences, but all target families. “Museum” and “Eragon” both target teens as well. All three films will be battling for the top holiday film spot. Additionally, films like “Rocky Balboa,” “Black Christmas” and “We Are Marshall” should take away a lot of the male audiences, so “Eragon” has VERY strong competition throughout December. It could have a major impact on its box-office potential.

Box-Office Effect: Negative

Cast
"Eragon" has a large cast, including Jeremy Irons, Sienna Guillory, Robert Carlyle, John Malkovich, Garrett Hedlund, Christopher Egan, and more. "Eragon" has a large cast that has near zero box-office drawing power. The most familiar face in the bunch would be John Malkovich, who isn't a significant draw, especially for mainstream audiences. The film doesn't really require an impressive cast, though. "The Chronicles of Narnia" featured a no-name cast as well, but that didn't stop it from grossing over $290m last year. The cast should have no effect in this situation.

Box-Office Effect: Neutral

Genre
Fantasy is currently the cool type of film to release over the holidays. Book adaptations are also becoming more and more common after the massive success of “Lord of the Rings.” “Narnia” did very well last year. However, “Eragon” doesn’t have the type of awareness “Narnia” or “Rings” had. Even “Lemony Snickets” was a popular book among children. “Eragon” has a small fanbase. Not so small that it won’t have a little bit of effect, but not significant enough to push it past $100m total on the fanbase alone. The amount of book sales aren’t even comparable, so “Eragon” being a high-profile adaptation of a fantasy book doesn’t make a huge difference. One could argue that “Eragon” is more comparable to “Dungeons & Dragons” or “Reign of Fire,” two films with a similar theme – dragons. It actually does seem more similar to those films, but with far more appeal to families, making it more comparable to “Narnia” on a MUCH smaller scale.

Box-Office Effect: Neutral

Marketing
20th Century Fox, usually a studio that does well with marketing and buys itself larger-than-expected opening weekends (see “X3,” “Prada,” “Borat,” “Ice Age II”), had a very late start on marketing “Eragon.” The trailer wasn’t released until “Gridiron Gang” in September (a film seen by very few), a very late release for a big-budget film like this. It seemed like more attention and effort was put on marketing “Night at the Museum,” which isn’t surprising since it will likely gross a lot more than “Eragon.” It seemed like “Eragon” was in trouble. Over the last month, however, the marketing push has been aggressive. The trailer was also attached to prints of “Happy Feet” and “Casino Royale,” the two biggest films of the fall, which probably pushed the awareness very high. The special effects in the trailer look great. It’s difficult to say whether the late marketing push will hurt it a lot, but from what we’ve seen in the past month, the footage shows seems effective enough to pull in crowds over the break, if not a large crowd in the first weekend.

Box-Office Effect: Neutral

Screen Counts / Theater Counts
With so much competition, “Eragon” will have trouble getting a lot of screens. Opening against two hit films on its opening weekend doesn’t help. It could make the difference between an average of three screens per theater or an average of two. One week later, “Night at the Museum,” “We Are Marshall,” “Rocky Balboa,” “The Good Shepherd,” and “Black Christmas” will try to capture those screens as well. This will likely hurt films like “The Nativity Story,” “Casino Royale,” “Déjà Vu,” and other November-released films, but “Eragon” won’t be able to reach its potential screens. In terms of theater counts, it’s currently estimated to be in over 3,000 theaters, and I imagine that count will be closer to 3,200 or more when the actual figure is released. This should help balance out screen counts; however, after the first weekend, “Eragon” could possibly be moved from the larger seating theaters to the medium or smaller ones when “Night at the Museum” releases. Unless “Eragon” opens to huge numbers, it could have trouble holding onto larger auditoriums.

Box-Office Effect: Slightly Negative

Final Thoughts / Prediction
"Eragon" looks like it could go either way. At this point, I think it's safe to assume that this won't be the $40m opener some predicted before and during the summer, as the general hype for the film isn't near those levels at all. It also doesn't look dead-in-the-water like some predicted when the trailer wasn't being released until September, so I don't think we're looking at a flop either (despite its large budget). The box-office potential for "Eragon" is hard to pin down - it has a wide range. The film isn't guaranteed a #1 opening, nor is it a lock for $100m total, but it also isn't another "Dungeons & Dragons" (which grossed $15.2m TOTAL in December '00). The film could open anywhere from $15m to $35m, but most likely, it'll be in the middle ground of that range. I predict "Eragon" to open to roughly $23-27m and finish with around $95-110m. The low end would be around $19-22m, leading to around $80m total, and the high end would be $28-33m, leading to around $120-130m total. The multiplier should be good; not necessarily in the "Lord of the Rings" or "Narnia" range, but close to "King Kong," which had a 4.03x multiplier (not counting its opening Wednesday and Thursday gross).