Well, sorta. The debut weekend of of Narnia ($67.1 million) beat the debut weekends of the first two LOTR films ($47.2 million and $67 million, respectively). Of course, Narnia is riding on their coattails (I believe the technical term is "drafting"). But I am pleased to see it do so well, not so much against LOTR in particular, but because there is some Christian values sneaking into the national consciousness at a massive rate.
If you're interested, Broke back appears to have opened in five theaters, taking in half a million, but I'd argue you can't extrapolate that out to the whole country. I wonder what their strategy is in limiting it to five theaters; maybe they want to try to stoke demand for it.
If Broke back is playing in Los Angeles County, they may just be fulfilling their eligibility for the Academy Awards, which requires a run of at least 7 consecutive days in LA county commencing in the appropriate calendar year? It's been done before (of course, I've ever understood the why-not-wider-release question wrt to those films either).
As I understand it, the point of that limited release just before the New Year is to garner some nominations, which will then justify opening it across the country with "NOMINATED FOR 7 GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS" splashed on the poster in a larger font than the title. That typically generates more income for such films of limited mass appeal.
Correction: Two Towers debuted at $62 million, not $67, according to the article to which you linked.
I suppose some of the interest in Narnia will be because of the previous successes of LOTR and Harry Potter but there's more to it than that.
First, fantacy has always been very popular. Kids adore fantacy stories and movies.
Second, the CG effects in this movie are outstanding. Far better than Harry Potter and even LOTR, IMHO.
Third, the Narnia series has always been popular, even with people who don't see the Christian message in it. Previous adaptations, although poorly done, were somewhat popular.
Fourth, Christians are determined to make a stand and send a message. We'll be coming to the theaters just to tell Hollywood that Narnia, and movies like it, are what we want to see.
:)
Just wanted to point out that J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis were very close friends. Both were very devout Christians (Tolkien was also Catholic). Lewis, being a theologian, presented the first Narnia book as a parallel to the Jesus story, as we all know. Tolkien, although he probably would never have admitted to this, introduced many Christian concepts in the LOTR series. So there were Christian values in here as well - sacrifice, brotherhood and so on.