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 ...
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 filmsas 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!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.