The estimate of $24.5 million for the weekend over at Box Office Mojo is more than $10 million shy of the low-end figures that jolly Carl DiOrio trumpeted and which sounded perfectly reasonable to me. Apparently, this series is not being greeted with anything like the same sort of loyalty a Harry Potter or “Lord of the Rings” receives. Just as apparently, Fox and Walden Media’s strategy of targeting those sometimes Harry-negative and nearly always C.S. Lewis-positive evangelical Christian groups didn’t do much. Sometimes people can tell when they’re being marketed to and they don’t always like it.

Even so, this series tends to do very well abroad. Also, as Nikki Finke mentions, the studio is banking on word of mouth to help smooth things over. I imagine the reason for that is the Cinemascore A rating mentioned by Anthony D’Alessandro. Fox’s decision to take this off Disney’s hands, while reducing the outsize budgets, may still prove wise.

It’s budget was a mere $100 million, about $50 million less than “Dawn Treader, and the difference between the prediction and the reality is not as enormous. However, this weekend’s #2 film’s grosses are not something that will put a spring in the step of Sony executives. “The Tourist” nailed an estimate of $17 million for the weekend, as opposed to the $20 million figure that was thrown out earlier. It might be a bit harsh for Nikki Finke to use the “tank” word, but expectations had already been tamped down hugely for a movie from a hot young director starring, pretty literally, the two most famous actors in the world.

When a movie directed by a critical darling like Florian Henckel von Donnersmark (“The Lives of Others”) gets drubbed by critics the way this one has — and the Rotten Tomatoes “top critics” have been especially harsh — there’s more at work than the sophomore slump. On the other hand, “The Tourist” did nail a decent B from Cinemascore, for what that’s worth. We’ll see whether my glib line about this being a movie with a great pedigree that could turn out be just a dog applies to the worldwide box office over the long haul. Despite everything, this could be another “Knight and Day.” Unfortunately, a movie doesn’t have to be particularly liked by anyone to do well.

It’s award season and things are looking a lot more interesting right now in the world of limited release. The week’s highest per-screen average by far was at the four theaters showing “The Fighter.” Grosses for director David O. Russell’s apparent comeback after the box office failure of “I Heart Huckabees” averaged $80,000, for an outstanding opening weekend estimate of $320,000. It’s pretty clear that Paramount’s evident commercial confidence in this film was eminently justified.

Also doing amazing business, “Black Swan” enjoyed a boffo second weekend with an average of over $37,000 in 90 theaters. It was actually the #6 movie in the country while showing in only a tiny fraction of the theaters its competitors are playing in, and garnered an estimate of over $3.3 million. Considering the ballet thriller’s $5.6 total take so far, a budget of only $13 million, and the near certainty of multiple Oscar nominations, this could be the year’s sleeper cash cow. I haven’t seen it yet, but I will say that studios should never underestimate the cross-gender appeal of over-the-top melodrama and a bit of terror. Fox Searchlight was smart not to.

“The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” is the third installment in the adaptation of C.S. Lewis’s immensely popular fantasy novels. Though it was helmed by veteran filmmaker Michael Apted, it’s not entirely smooth sailing for the family-friendly adventures. Disney dropped the series after the somewhat disappointing showing of “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian” back in 2008. Since then, as discussed by both Ben Fritz and jolly Carl DiOrio Fox has picked it up and trimmed the budget in partnership with Walden Media to an oh-so-thrifty $155 million (!).

That’s probably a good thing because it doesn’t seem to be generating a huge amount of excitement, at least from critics. On the other hand, Narnia fans are a sure bet to turn out and, as the first 3D installment in the series, “Dawn Treader” could enjoy a bit of a bump from those inflated ticket prices. DiOrio’s guess of $35-45 million seems reasonable.

From everything I’ve seen today, Sony’s “The Tourist” looks like it may be one of those movies that comes with the finest pedigree but just turns out to be a bit of a dog. Not only does this remake of a French thriller little-seen in the U.S. boast the truly enormous star voltage of Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie, it’s the follow-up film to the Oscar winning worldwide success, “The Lives of Others” by German writer-director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. I saw von Donnersmark introduce that film before its domestic opening. He turns out to be an extremely fluent and completely unaccented English speaker who, even before his film opened in the U.S., was not shy about his lust to take on American films.

The maker of the compellingly dour political thriller has taken on an attempt at a sophisticated, lighthearted thriller along the lines of such non-Hitchcock Hitchcock films as “Charade.” And, where that film had a screenplay by the great Peter Stone, this one has one credited to von Donnersmark, Christopher McQuarrie (“The Usual Suspects”) and Julian Fellowes (“Gosford Park”). You can’t blame a guy for trying.

The review by our own David Medsker was entirely unenthusiastic, but it was a rave compared with the highly negative reaction of critics overall. The same scribes who rhapsodized over “The Lives of Others” largely found “The Tourist” an exercise in high-gloss boredom. While audiences will be lured by the appearance of an ideal date movie the first weekend, you’ve got to wonder how the film will do once people see it for themselves. Still, about $20 million seems to be figure for the first weekend. We’ll see about the legs later on.

There’s also a bunch going on in the realm of limited releases. Looking at Box Office Mojo, we have a significant expansions of “Black Swan” after its boffo opening weekend. One brand new entry this weekend in five theaters is a new version of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” which, despite starring the great Helen Mirren in a bit of gender-altering casting is getting pretty dismal reviews for famed/infamous director Julie Taymor.  A Shakespeare adaptation with bad reviews is a movie in trouble. “The Fighter” debuts also on four screens, though you can expect many more later.

In a movie world where acting modes lean to grim seriousness, leavened by the occasional out-and-out parody, it’s nice to see Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp channeling the gently tongue-in-cheek approach of folks like Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant. What’s more impressive is that the director is the multisyllabic German director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. His first-rate Oscar winner, “The Lives of Others” had its humorous moments, but it was heavy-duty stuff, pretty much the opposite of this kind of cinema souffle. Very interesting. The script is credited to a trio of writers, including Julian Fellowes (“Gosford Park”) and Christopher McQuarrie (“The Usual Suspects”).

* Peter Saarsgard of the very good “An Education” is a highly intriguing actor who I’ve been following for some time, especially since catching his work in the underrated “The Dying Gaul” at Sundance a few years back. No matter what kind of character he’s playing, he seems to have a real gift for moral ambiguity. If he’s cast as a villain, we think he must have a good side, and if he’s cast as someone more upright, we wonder if there isn’t something underhanded going on. Anyhow, Borys Kit reports that it looks like he might be playing the villain side of the street in the Green Lantern movie. Could be good.

* The longest named director in show business is back on “The Tourist,” a remake of a French thriller to star Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie.  Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck is the very talented and personable multilingual director behind “The Lives of Others.”

* Simon Brew has some more on the upcoming “Spiderman” reboot announced yesterday. His list of possible new Spideys has two interesting entries that I can’t quite agree with. Daniel Radcliffe actually makes some sense, but we’ll have to see how his American accent is, though I’d personally advise the soon-to-be ex-Harry Potter to avoid overly franchisey roles for a while. Michael Cera would be interesting but, I fear, disastrous. He’d have to get muscular and we know what happens to funny young actors when they become too obviously physically fit. Just ask Anthony Michael Hall.

The trick with Peter Parker is that the actor has to be believable both as a vulnerable demi-nerd, and as the sinewy superhero. Tobey Maguire was actually a really outstanding choice.

* As for superhero casting at the other end of the age scale, it can now be revealed that some time ago the Hughes Brothers were contemplating making a film of  The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller’s epoch-making 1985 comic book (in my view, a “graphic novel” is just a long comic book with an inferiority complex).

To star as the comic’s near-geriatric Batman/Bruce Wayne they were thinking of “somebody like Clint Eastwood.” Actually, at the time, he was about the only star for the role. Mel Gibson is getting close to having the right age/physicality for the role in maybe another five-ten years. He’s already got the worldview to play a Miller hero, I suspect. (H/t JoBlo).

* The L.A. Film Critics have spoken: the best movie of the aughts was “Mulholland Drive.” Could there be a bias in the film’s favor if you’ve actually driven the windy hillside road with the awesome nighttime views?

* Can we start calling them Galifianakis & Rudd now that they’re apparently starring in two movies together in a row? The script of their next film is by comic Demetri Martin and will be directed by Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton of “Little Miss Sunshine.” Should be interesting.

* This cool little web toy shows you the most popular Netflix rentals of 2009 by zip-code in various large urban areas. It seems that people use Netflix largely to catch up Oscar films they don’t feel like seeing in the theater, e.g., “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” (Sorry, Dave, but I don’t think think I would have made it to the end of that one I’d been watching it at home.)

* This makes me feel a little bit better about the guy currently scheduled to make the newest attempt at “Dune.” Not to compare Pierre Morel to Peter Jackson, necessarily, but having a fan do a project like this makes sense to me. You want someone with real passion.

* Last night, I wrote a bit about the passing of the great French writer-director Erich Rohmer at age 89. I didn’t mention an infamous quote from director Arthur Penn and writer Alan Sharp’s 1975 “Night Moves” in which a private eye played by Gene Hackman humorously compares watching a Rohmer film to an inherently boring act. Jim Emerson will explain it for you. He also mentions a Twitter meme. See if you can find my oh-so brilliant contribution.

* Sitting around watching TV kills! Instead, see a movie while standing up and fidgeting a lot.

* Quentin Tarantino tells a story I’d never heard before about the making of 1992’s “Reservoir Dogs” and the legendarily nutso actor Lawrence Tierney, who embodied crime boss Joe Cabot so well in the film. Though I count myself as something of a Tierney fan, it’s not hard to believe that Tierney, who died in 2002, needed firing. Nor do I have a hard time buying the story in his Wikipedia entry explaining why he only only appeared once as Elaine Benes’ intimidating author father on “Seinfeld.” I personally witnessed Tierney’s oddness more than once.

The most memorable example came before a screening of his “Born to Kill”, a 1947 thriller he’d starred in. In a more or less friendly mode, he accosted me and a friend. He was affable enough but what he said didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. Not long after, it seemed to me that he managed to intimidate the film’s famously mild-mannered director, Robert Wise, from the audience while interrupting a post-screening Q&A. But then it turns out that, according to film noir expert Eddie Muller writing back in 1999, I didn’t know the half of it. Let’s just say that it turns out there are worse forms of filmgoer misbehavior than taking cell phone calls. Much worse.

* Demon-plagued Katie and Micah of “Paranormal Activity” live (and hopefully have good agents). Also, those with a high tolerance for low humor will want to check out my friends, the Perry Boys, in “Perry-Normal Activity.”

* RIP comic actor, vaudevillian, and magician Carl Ballantine aka “The Great Ballantine, who survived very nicely until age 92.

* Roadside Attractions has picked up “The Joneses,” a comedic social satire with two career survivors, David Duchovny and Demi Moore.

* “The Tourist,” a remake of a 2005 French thriller little seen in the U.S. has lost Sam Worthington and the very good director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (“The Lives of Others.”) However, it lives to tell the tale as it’s gained Johnny Depp and, perhaps, and an even better director in Alfonso Cuaron (“Y Tu Mama Tambien,” “Children of Men“).