Narnia dropping to almost non existent by the third film is inexistent in todays age. Was the marketing that bad? I personally found Prince Caspian much better than the first. But even to this day you don't see sequels fail so badly anymore. It's almost on par with Jaws or the original Superman franchise of the 80s. Why such a major decrease? Was the first book that amazing, or did the second film really alienate fans. Was ignoring most the cast in the third film its downfall?

LW,&W is the most iconic and well known thing about the series. And Caspian was terrible

Release date change was horrendous as well. This was never a franchise that was going to thrive in the summer.

I wonder if it has anything to do with the bottom kind of falling out on fantasy/period movies in general. Look how just a few months earlier, His Dark Materials basically grounded New Line for life. For that matter, look how The Hobbit declined 100 million. I think it's just a very fragile genre.

I never even knew that there was a book series. I thought The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe was a standalone book.

I assume many people thought this, and the marketing for Prince Caspian didn't do enough to convince people that these two properties were linked.