Posted on 06/19/2010 8:21:53 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The first official trailer for the third movie installment of the “Chronicles of Narnia” made its public debut Thursday morning, giving fans a peak at what some thought wasn't going to be after Walt Disney Pictures abandoned ship.
Released at midnight, the two-minute trailer for "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" beckons Narnia fans to “Return to Hope,” “Return to Magic,” and “Return to Narnia” five years after the first film hit theaters to positive reviews and box office success.
“You have returned for a reason. Your adventure begins now,” says the series’ central character, Aslan, in the trailer.
Also returning for the voyage are Pevensie siblings Edmund and Lucy, and King (formerly Prince) Caspian.
Not on board for the third installment, however, is Walt Disney Pictures, which announced in 2008 – just days before Christmas – that it would not be co-producing and co-financing “Dawn Treader,” citing "budgetary considerations and other logistics" as reasons behind the decision.
Instead, 20th Century Fox has partnered with Walden Media for the next title in the Christian-themed fantasy series, hoping that it will fare far better than the one before, “Prince Caspian,” which pulled in only $419 million despite a larger $200 million budget.
Many critics had blamed Disney for the second film’s less impressive success, claiming that Disney refused to hold any pre-screenings and would not pursue any special marketing of the film to churches and other Christian markets, where "Narnia" author C.S. Lewis is regarded as one of the most influential Christian apologists of his time.
“[F]or the first film an extensive and highly effective marketing campaign directed by Motive Entertainment (the marketing experts from Passion of the Christ fame) produced an enormous response from Christian movie goers,” noted the Calif.-based C.S. Lewis Society.
“Disney however presented Prince Caspian as a strictly secular and violent, fantasy/adventure/romance, and the result was all too predictable,” it added.
Furthermore, unlike the first “Narnia” film, which had a holiday release, “Prince Caspian” came out in the spring and was up against superhero summer flicks including “Iron Man” and “Indiana Jones.”
“Disney tried to market it as an action flick, with limited success,” observed media analyst James Hirsen in a commentary for Newsmax.com.
With Disney out and Fox in, Narnia fans are hoping “Dawn Treader” will see success similar to “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,” which raked in $745 million in ticket sales worldwide on a $180 million production budget.
“Dawn Treader” is set to release on Dec. 10, 2010, in both traditional 2D and Digital 3D.
The trailer looks promising. Caspian was a big disappointment. Hopefully, this next installment will be better.
Disney is infested with secular leftscum. They Just. Don’t. Get. It.
20th Century is almost as bad, but not quite. They’re willing to feed the red meat to the Christian core of this nation (along with a ton of bilge, too).
Frankly, they aren’t much better, just better enough and good enough business people to understand how to do this.
Conclusion: I have some hope this won’t suck.
It's always interesting to see how folks respond when a film fails. If it's released in the summer or Christmas, they say, "It failed because there was too much competition!" If released when there's little competition, they say, "They should have released it when the kids were out of school and able to see it!"
I think the first movie was just a better mix of the story and themes and the action, while the second I actually bailed on because it was just not as interesting. I can't even recall if the second was a good adaptation of the book.
I did like the score to the second one better than that of the first, tho'.
I've read about the investor behind these and I wish him luck. Good to see people with a desire to make different films getting into the financing side of the biz.
Honestly, Caspian was the weakest of the books IMHO. Not surprised it didn’t translate well, whether they tried to juice it up or no.
Dawn Treader is much, much stronger. Not much of a main overall conflict, but lots of smaller conflicts and great settings and scenes, including Eustaces conversion, will overcome that (I hope).
Prince Caspian failed because they stripped it of its heart. The heart of the book was faith. The heart of the movie was adventure. Not a bad premise for a regular movie... deadly for a Christian movie needing a Christian audience.
Nah, Disney’s weak kneed management imho has made the calculation that it is better to not “brand’ the new film with the Disney trademark.
Children/young adult films make massive amounts of money, or can, if this one does they will look sorta as short sighted as the management that gave the “go” signal for that Atheistic Compass film, one so forgettable that the title eludes me at the moment.
The first movie was based on the most popular and well known book of the series. I’m not sure it’s possible for a movie based on any of the other books to do as well as that one.
I do love the book series though. Hopefully this one is done well.
IMHO Disney wanted Prince Caspian to fail. Sure, they made 100% ROI, but they are so committed to an anti-Christian worldview that they had to remake a Christian book into a faithless, pointless action movie. If it failed, they had a reason to let the franchise go... and they did.
At the heart of the book was faith and trust. The children had to trust Aslan when He led them through the gorge (and trust Lucy’s word that she could see Him). They then had to trust Aslan during the siege that He would take care of business in His own way in His own time. They simply stalled as long as they could and waited for Aslan to act.
The movie had the kids stage a reckless invasion of the castle where they had to leave men behind and Peter nearly let the Narnians call the White Witch for help... this is not the stuff of the high king nor acts of faith in Aslan.
I nearly cried when I saw what they did to one of my favorite books.
Quite frankly I was disappointed in LWW, not because it deviated from the book to be more cinematic (to be expected) but because the deviations were either pointless (the scene on the ice) or not used to good effect (King Peter should have been the one to come up with the idea of aerial bombardment—it would have tied in the war scene at the opening, which was necessary, since the movie audience unlike Lewis’s original audience for the book didn’t have a sense of the conditions in wartime Britain that led to children being sent to the countrysides, with Peter’s development from school boy to king).
I haven’t seen Caspian, but I figured it would be a let down in box office terms no matter how well it was done: I mean the Narnian analog of the Gospel sold to a largely protestant audience like hotcakes, the Narnian analog of the Battle of Milvian Bridge and the Edict of Milan, overlaid with a watered down version of the opening plot to Hamlet, not so much.
I have a feeling they’ll ruin Dawn Treader unless someone beats them over the head to stick to the book. It will be just an adventure tale if the book isn’t followed very closely to preserve Lewis’s subtle points about sacramental theology. (And quite frankly, as an adventure tale, Prince Caspian was a better book.) And it would be nice of the critique of “progressive” education and parenting was left in. Any bets it won’t be?
Looking forward to seeing the film at Christmas.
Cheers!
That would be The Golden Turd.
Cheers!
Prince Caspian deviated too strongly from the book. Every Christian I know who went to see it expressed disappointment to me about it.
They need to understand this book is a Christian classic and taking the Christianity out of it won’t fly.
Voyage of the Dawn Treader has in it one of the strongest fantasy allegorys of the salvation experience, of a “faith not works” depiction. I have been dreading what Disney would do to that scene, where Eustace finds he cannot take his filthy skin off and Aslan must do it for him.
“There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.”
Best opening line in children’s literature ever.
I adore Reepicheep.
And the drinkable light; and the Star's Daughter...and the Dufflepuds ("You will wonder to see how many of you we can kill before we die"."
And The Magician -- "in my house all hungry times are eleven o'clock" -- and the quote from Ulysses coming from the sleeper (juxtaposed, humorously à la Shakespeare, with "Mustard, please") -- "Weren't born to live like animals. Get to the east while you've a chance — lands behind the sun" ; and the Stone Knife kept in honor...
So my response to you must be this:
"How?" said the Grey_Whiskers with a frown. "If you were not so young a warrior, Boy, you and I must have fought to the death on this quarrel. I can hear no words against The Dawn Teader's honour."
En garde!
What are your thoughts on the movie prospects of the remaining books:
A Horse and His Boy
The Silver Chair
The Last Battle
The Magician’s Nephew
I’m referring to the likelihood of a movie being good if made, not the likelihood of the movie actually being made.
I would really like to see the whole series done. The only one have have a hard time picturing as a good movie is The Last Battle.
To me, the key to the third film being a success is marketing it to the original audience, mainly Christians, a market that Disney no longer has an interest in marketing to, but still a highly profitable one if the effort is done correctly.
CS Lewis was a Genius, as well as being a inspired writer, his films are important to a Christian Culture, though I’d love to see a “Screwtape Letters” film done properly more so than his Narnia series.
Imvvho that film would really play with it’s “clean shaven cheeks and pressed white collars” narrative.
To me, that's a very strong Christian message.
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