The marketing campaign for 'The Golden Compass' was so good that people still believe that it was a successful movie to this day, even though nobody knows anyone who went to see it. The truth is that it didn't do spectacularly badly at the box office - although it failed to meet expectations - it's just that the way New Line Cinema went about making the film was near-suicidal from a financial point of view. They needed $200m to make the movie according to their artistic vision. They didn't have it in cash, so they took the unusual step of selling off all their rights to their own film overseas.
That was great in the short term - it got them the money - but it meant that the only money they'd make back was from U.S. screenings. As it turned out, the international audience was much keener on it than the American audience. It made only $70m in the U.S., compared to $300m across the globe. Financially wounded by the poor decision, New Line was quickly snapped up by Warner Bros. at a discount price.