Hollywood’s usual habit of late is to dump three to four new movies into theaters every weekend, most of it mediocre crap not worth half the ticket price. It’s a trend interrupted only when the big fish come along. You know which movies are likely to be huge because no one dares to open anything against them, and this weekend is just such an occasion.

Walden Media’s fantasy franchise The Chronicles of Narnia opens another chapter, Prince Caspian [Read The CB Review] in nearly 4,000 theaters this weekend. Nothing stands in its way of being number one, but it’s not likely to be any more than flavor of the week where the box office is concerned.

The first film in the series, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe opened with an exciting but not earth-shattering debut weekend of $65.5 million. While Caspian is almost certain to top it (look for something in the $80 millions), it won’t be able to beat Iron Man’s remarkable near-$100 million opening weekend. Not only that, next week Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will descend on the wings of one of the strongest anticipation-building marketing schemes of all time, stealing the thunder right out from under Narnia.

While it may not be one of summer’s record breakers, Prince Caspian will definitely be a box office success and is easily one of the best film’s of the season. It’s worth the crowds and waiting in line to see Reepicheep the mouse kick butt and take names as Narnia’s forests show Middle Earth’s Ents how it’s really done.