If I had three seconds to guess what large corporation leads all others in the number of homosexuals employed, I'd have to guess...
...that one.
Posted on 12/25/2008 5:50:35 PM PST by grandpa jones
Los Angeles - Disney confirmed Wednesday that it would not be involved in the third film of "The Chronicles of Narnia" fantasy series, dealing a blow to the franchise based on CS Lewis's classic books.
A spokesperson for Disney confirmed in an e-mail that the company had chosen not to exercise an option to co-produce and co-finance the next Narnia film with producers Walden Media.
The Hollywood Reporter cited "budgetary and logistical reasons" for Disney's decision, which leaves the third film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader facing an uncertain future.
The film was due to start filming early next year with a release date tentatively set for 2010.
The two previous films in the series The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian have grossed more than $1.1bn worldwide since the first film was released in 2005.
(Excerpt) Read more at news24.com ...
$1.1 billion? Yeah, that kind of "cooling of interest" says that there is more to this story than interest.
But I wonder how “Caspian” (2) did, compared to “Lion” (1). If there was a significant drop-off, that could be a factor.
It is political. The Narnia Chronicles are a Christian allegory. Gee, shock that Disney won’t touch it, despite the proven bankability. Actually shocked they touched the first two. Even more shocked they didn’t manage to screw them up...
Call the people who did Shreck. Narnia is supposed to be animated.
Mr. Gresham, are you reading?
Ditto to what you said.
Certainly makes one wonder.
Sure does.
Don’t worry, they will come up with a children’s movie about greedy humans screwing up the environment like all the rest of the industry. Conformity sells movies don’t you know.
Lion grossed over $700M. Prince grossed over $400M. So yes, there was a drop off, but $400M+ movies aren’t exactly failures, or even easy to find...
What has "cooled" the "genre" is #1: Bad production on the later HP movies, and 2: Its been nearly 10 years since any LOTR movies.
Narnia has done well consistently, so where is the loss of audience?
They stand for crap!
Walt Disney must be rolling over in his grave. This is so sad.
I REALLY loved the Lion, too.
The Lion ...
TOTAL LIFETIME GROSSES
Domestic: $291,710,957 39.2%
+ Foreign: $453,300,315 60.8%
= Worldwide: $745,011,272
DOMESTIC SUMMARY
Opening Weekend: $65,556,312
(3,616 theaters, $18,129 average)
% of Total Gross: 22.5%
Widest Release: 3,853 theaters
Close Date: May 11, 2006
In Release: 154 days / 22 weeks
Prince Caspian...
Domestic: $141,621,490 33.7%
+ Foreign: $278,027,596 66.3%
= Worldwide: $419,649,086
DOMESTIC SUMMARY
Opening Weekend: $55,034,805
(3,929 theaters, $14,007 average)
% of Total Gross: 38.9%
Widest Release: 3,929 theaters
Close Date: September 4, 2008
In Release: 112 days / 16 weeks
I was actually glad that the movies had a LOTR feel to it. Both Lewis and Tolkein were very much friends - in fact, it was Tolkien that Lewis gave credit to for his reversion from atheism, although Tolkien was disappointed that Lewis embraced Anglicanism rather than Tolkien's Roman Catholocism.
That being siad, the two were not very far apart in their approach to literature, nor in major theological doctrine, so it is appropiate that the fi,ms have the same "feel".
This could be a face-saving opportunity for New Line, who have totally screwed up the future Hobbit film due to their financial shenanagans...
Read Lewis's spiritual autobiography, Surprised By Joy. He specifically cites GK Chesterton, and Chesterton's book, Everlasting Man, many of the themes and arguments resurface in Lewis's Mere Christianity.
Thanks for the clarification.
A bit of interesting trivia: In the recent Lion film, there is the scene where the children are sitting indoors at the professor's estate due to the rain and war news is coming over the radio. The voice on the radio is Doug Gresham, Lewis's step-son.
I've been a huge fan of the Narnia books since I got them as a Christmas present at age 6.
And really I think these movies are about as good as it gets film-wise. The Narnia stories are hard to translate to film.
well, to be fair, disney didn’t get 1.1 billion, that is just the gross number (box office only? not sure) I think studios get only roughly half of box office grosses.
I do wonder what the 2 films cost to make.
“2: Its been nearly 10 years since any LOTR movies.”
actually exactly 5 since RotK was released...but agree in any event.
There was a cooling of interest, the second movie made only 2/3 what the first did, 1/2 domestically, and cost 20 million more to make. That’s bad math.
Foreign Gross doesn't matter. It might be nice for the studio, but if a film doesn't make its money back domestic, there won't be enough pie to make it worthwhile for the distributors and exhibitors who don't share foreign.
LWW 180M to make, 290M domestic. More importantly opening weekend $18,000/screen, still over $1000 weekend 16.
Prince Caspian 200M to make, 140M domestic. Opening weekend $14000/screen, down to 1000 after 10-11 weeks.
Did you read the books? It's a cartoon all the way.
You must be younger than I am -- the generation that needs to have things pounded into it.
“$1.1 billion? Yeah, that kind of ‘cooling of interest’ says that there is more to this story than interest.”
No kidding!
What I want to see is a computer-generated film of George Washington (done like the movie “300” was done), broken into 3 parts: Washington’s early years up until the French & Indian War, Washington at the beginning and end of the Revolution, and Washington at the Constitutional Convention then President to his death. Since it’s all CGI, all you would need is good voice actors & actresses and all 3 parts could probably be made at a reasonable $250 million.
“Call the people who did Shreck. Narnia is supposed to be animated.”
Hell no! I thought “Lion” was very well done the way it was, and I haven’t seen “Casprian” so I can’t comment on that one.
The only method that might work would be a mix of live action and very cutting edge animation, like parts of Bakshi's uncompleted "Lord of the Rings" -- which was awful in itself but had some really good ideas buried in the mess.
31 replies and nobody has been clever enough to make a reference to “Hollyweird” yet? I’m shocked.
dude, that was high school work from the last century; nay, the last millenium.
"Action" is not what the Chronicles of Narnia are about. If that's what you're after...maybe you want a Mel Gibson movie.
A fantasy about talking animals can only be carried off with first rate animation, like Disney used to do.
Are you joking? Hard to tell. Andrew Adamson directed both Narnia films—as well as Shrek I and II. Don't think he would agree with you on the animation thing.
He was actually in a bit of a quandry when Caspian rolled around, because as a fan of the Narnia books, he had already done his version of Reepicheep with Puss… in Boots. He had to come up with a new angle.
Probably creative differences. If a modern Disney movie doesn’t have its minimum quota of burps and farts, it would appear they won’t touch it. I don’t remember any of that in the first movie, so I suspect they’ve hit their limit.
It's not a straight "talking animal" flick, and it's not really an action film (my kind of action film leans towards Kurosawa anyhow), it has a mythic, numinous quality that's difficult to capture. "The Last Unicorn" is another example of how a mythic fantasy doesn't translate to cartoons. Mostly because some of the characters (Aslan, the Unicorn) have to appear fundamentally different from both the other animals and the humans in the story. Cartoons make all the characters look alike. I loved the book of "Unicorn" but hated the cartoon.
The CGI combined with live actors seems to me to be the best way to approach this sort of story.
If I had three seconds to guess what large corporation leads all others in the number of homosexuals employed, I'd have to guess...
...that one.
Right. I imagine some of the Disney executives actually started reading C.S. Lewis and got offended all over themselves.
Lewis wrote not only about absolute truth in God (the real, one in the Bible) but discussed such things as universal gender themes, which speak of the nature of God and man. Oops!
I wonder if C.S. Lewis Christian allegory aspects had ~anything~ to do with it!
With the bad economy and an actors strike pending, this is probably a good decision.
I don’t think its anti-Christian in its intent. Disney is all about the bottom line...it doesn’t care if something is pro-Christian or anti-Christion or non-confrontational. Disney just wants your money, like any other business.
The movie has child actors...during a strike their appearance could change dramatically. A movie with high production costs is not wise at this time, especially if it would have to be re-shot or re-cast.
I gotta go with the theory that the source material just wasn't godless enough for Team Rat's liking. Of all the channels on my Cable system, Team Rat is the only one I have blocked.
Actually, you would expect the 3rd movie to do as well as the 2nd. The first gets a lot of bump from people who don’t know about it, and who are drawn into the hype. The 2nd movie will be mostly people who care enough about the story to spend money a 2nd time. Those people are likely to follow through with all the subsequent movies, so long as they don’t screw them up.
A lot of people haven’t seen Caspian yet. It’s funny to compare the two movies, since I imagine this month Caspian is going to get a bump from DVD sales, just like LWW got the Christmas after it came out.
If 40 is younger than you, then yes - I am younger. I have read the books in my youth as well, and can enjoy reading them as much as watching the movies.
I trust, also, that as a USAF veteran and a preacher, no pounding upon is necessary upon MY part...
“What I want to see is a computer-generated film of George Washington”
Please dont! I love George and shudder to think of what hollyweird might do to him.
Jeff Daniels in “The Crossing” was good!
“The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe” is, imo, inarguably the most well known and beloved of the Nania series. It stands alone.
I’m a huge fan of C.S. Lewis and the Narnia Chronicles but I do feel it is more difficult to create the same suspense for the other books in the Narnia series the way it was done for LOTR trilogy. Even as a fan of the Narnia series, I confess I’m not as interested in the followups as I was for the first film. That was my favorite book, still is. No matter how good sequels could be, I’m still partial to TLTWATW.
I would still like to see the series continue as I do still enjoy it well enough and I suspect it will though perhaps with a little more care to the costs incurred in production.
I hate to say it, but though I love the books, the movies are kind of weak, despite special effects. It just doesn’t engage. I’m not surprised it doesn’t have more staying power, attracting an audience. Just saying.
Personally I found that a very satisfying ending but as literature it is far from the light, allusive touch in The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe. For persons unacquainted with Christian symbology it was likely to appear incomprehensible; for those hostile to it the thing would have been shrieked at as heavy-handed propaganda. In short, I think of all of the series except The Last Battle it might have been the most difficult to translate into a multi-leveled screenplay.
Not so The Silver Chair, a much simpler story that is, IMHO, eminently filmable. But of all of the others I'd most like to see someone film The Magician's Nephew. It's blatantly Genesis - Digory is even tempted by an apple - but done with the same light touch of The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe and working perfectly well on the level of a simple adventure story for those who find the Christian allusions distasteful. And that, unfortunately, describes a significant portion of the movie's market. And, of course, for those of us who did love The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe, it explains so very much, so very well.
Lewis’ storeies were plot driven with character development secondary. Tolkein’s stories were character driven with the plot being rather thin. Different styles, but both can be successful.
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