The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

[Prince Edward]

Hopefully Disney will reconsider. If not, I hope Walden Media gets the other Narnia-movies made and earns a lot of money that stupid Disney could have shared.

[chadhobbick]

What if Disney were to put a brand new Jonas Brothers or Hannah Montana tv episode and/or music video before the movie. That would get the money sales they are looking for, even if the tweens don't stick around for the main feature.

[Chernabog_Rocks]

What if Disney were to put a brand new Jonas Brothers or Hannah Montana tv episode and/or music video before the movie. That would get the money sales they are looking for, even if the tweens don't stick around for the main feature.

Rather pointless, why bother making a multi million dollar movie if a majority only come for the crap entertainment before it? Even then why watch a new HM episode or music video in the theater after paying money for it when you can just sit at home and see it for free and without the other annoying people around you?

All in all DAMN YOU DISNEY. I miss Walt era Disney, even if I didn't live during those times and experience it, it looks like it was a lot better time to be a Disney fan than it is now.

I wonder if a Petition would work to get the Narnia movies going again, obviously a lot of us on this site alone are angry/upset over it.

[Poody]

I don't really care if the film as Disney's name on it or not. I just hope it gets made.... Along with the other Narnia books.

Can't say I'm happy with Disney on this one.... oh well!

[Barbossa]

What if Disney were to put a brand new Jonas Brothers or Hannah Montana tv episode and/or music video before the movie. That would get the money sales they are looking for, even if the tweens don't stick around for the main feature.

By the time Dawn Treader will come out, Miley Cyrus will be old news and Disney will have a new tween darling to exploit.

[Neal]

Kind of insulting that at the Walt Disney World parade today they announced their 'newest edition' - Prince Caspian. Didn't make enough money to finish the trilogy but made enough money to be a parade attraction.

[Prince Edward]

What if Disney were to put a brand new Jonas Brothers or Hannah Montana tv episode and/or music video before the movie. That would get the money sales they are looking for, even if the tweens don't stick around for the main feature.

Rather pointless, why bother making a multi million dollar movie if a majority only come for the crap entertainment before it? Even then why watch a new HM episode or music video in the theater after paying money for it when you can just sit at home and see it for free and without the other annoying people around you?

All in all DAMN YOU DISNEY. I miss Walt era Disney, even if I didn't live during those times and experience it, it looks like it was a lot better time to be a Disney fan than it is now.

I wonder if a Petition would work to get the Narnia movies going again, obviously a lot of us on this site alone are angry/upset over it.

I wonder if someone allready have made such a petition? Perhaps some Narnia-fans on some Narnia-website/forum? I would be happy to sign any such petition!:)

[Prince Edward]

Kind of insulting that at the Walt Disney World parade today they announced their 'newest edition' - Prince Caspian. Didn't make enough money to finish the trilogy but made enough money to be a parade attraction.

I agree! A rude slap in the face for all Narnia-fans who liked the movies. Disney has broken their word: What about their previous stated commitment to make all the movies?

[rs_milo_whatever]

Like Disney hasn't proved they have no word in the past. I seriously am starting to wonder if they sit around and think of ways to make us angry.

[disneyboy20022]

I'm not at all disappointed. I mildly enjoyed the first film, but it never did feel like a Disney movie to me. I very much disliked the second film due to it mostly consisting of prolonged battle scenes over likable character development. I think Disney is doing itself a favor to disassociate itself with a series that never quite fit the company's image and style to begin with (at least in the way these films were done).

Well you do have a point there..I mean my local church bought out several showings of the first Narnia.........and if there is one thing Disney stays away from it's religion and politics....which that's always playing it safe...I.E. Disney Droopped Farenheit 9/11 after they made it because they decided at the last moment it was too controversial to get attach the Disney or Buena Vista Name to the film....

and In case your wondering why some local churches would buy out a few showings of the Narnia Films its because the guy who wrote the book C.S. Lewis was an atheist who later turned into a Christian and from what I know...C.S. Lewis wrote the book with Christian Values....kinda of from what I hear a very far indirect spin off of the Bible.....think about it...Sons of Adam...Daughters of Eve....Ring any bells?

Anyway the White Snow Queen was meant to represent the Devil....like the Devil and the Snow Queen they can seem nice at first but then if you cross them they show you their true colors....

Aslan was I think meant to represent Jesus again this is all and indirect approach...including the Snow Queen and the Devil simliarities....

here is a little info from wikipedia:

Conversion to Christianity

Raised in a church-going family in the Church of Ireland, Lewis claimed he became an atheist at the age of 15, though he later paradoxically described his young self (in Surprised by Joy) as being "very angry with God for not existing". He returned to his Christian beliefs at age 33.

His separation from Christianity began when he started to view his religion as a chore and as a duty; around this time he also gained an interest in the occult as his studies expanded to include such topics. Lewis quoted Lucretius (De rerum natura, 5.198–9) as having one of the strongest arguments for atheism:

Nequaquam nobis divinitus esse paratam
Naturam rerum; tanta stat praedita culpa

"Had God designed the world, it would not be
A world so frail and faulty as we see."

Lewis's interest in fantasy and mythology, especially in relation to the works of George MacDonald, was part of what turned him from atheism. In fact, MacDonald's position as a Christian fantasy writer was very influential on Lewis. This can be seen particularly well through this passage in Lewis's The Great Divorce, chapter nine, when the semi-autobiographical main character meets MacDonald in Heaven:

…I tried, trembling, to tell this man all that his writings had done for me. I tried to tell how a certain frosty afternoon at Leatherhead Station when I had first bought a copy of Phantastes (being then about sixteen years old) had been to me what the first sight of Beatrice had been to Dante: Here begins the new life. I started to confess how long that Life had delayed in the region of imagination merely: how slowly and reluctantly I had come to admit that his Christendom had more than an accidental connexion with it, how hard I had tried not to see the true name of the quality which first met me in his books is Holiness. (Lewis 1946, pp. 66 – 67)

Influenced by arguments with his Oxford colleague and friend J. R. R. Tolkien, and by the book The Everlasting Man by Roman Catholic convert G. K. Chesterton, he slowly rediscovered Christianity. He fought greatly up to the moment of his conversion noting, "I came into Christianity kicking and screaming." He described his last struggle in Surprised by Joy:

You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. (Lewis 1955)

After his conversion to theism in 1929, Lewis converted to Christianity in 1931. Following a long discussion and late-night walk with his close friends Tolkien and Hugo Dyson, he records making a specific commitment to Christian belief while on his way to the zoo with his brother. He became a member of the Church of England — somewhat to the disappointment of Tolkien, who had hoped he would convert to Roman Catholicism (Carpenter 2006).[2]

A committed Anglican, Lewis upheld a largely orthodox Anglican theology, though in his apologetic writings, he made an effort to avoid espousing any one denomination. In his later writings, some believe he proposed ideas such as purification of venial sins after death in purgatory (The Great Divorce) and mortal sin (The Screwtape Letters), which are generally considered to be Catholic teachings. Regardless, Lewis considered himself an entirely orthodox Anglican to the end of his life, reflecting that he had initially attended church only to receive communion and had been repelled by the hymns and the poor quality of the sermons. He later came to consider himself honoured by worshipping with men of faith who came in shabby clothes and work boots and who sang all the verses to all the hymns.

and here is the exact things that indirectly relate to Narnia and Christianity (as it says something like that in wikipedia:

The Chronicles of Narnia is a series of seven fantasy novels for children and is considered a classic of children's literature. Written between 1949 and 1954 and illustrated by Pauline Baynes, the series is Lewis' most popular work having sold over 100 million copies in forty-one languages (Kelly 2006) (Guthmann 2005). It has been adapted several times, complete or in part, for radio, television, stage, and cinema. The series has been published in several different orders, and the preferred reading order for the series is often debated among fans; Douglas Gresham has stated that Lewis preferred that they be read in "Narnian chronology", not the order in which they were published (Drennan 1999).

The books contain many allusions to Christian ideas which are easily accessible to younger readers; however, the books are not weighty, and can be read for their adventure, colour, and richness of ideas alone. Because of this, they have become favourites of children and adults, Christians and non-Christians. In addition to Christian themes, Lewis also borrows characters from Greek and Roman mythology as well as traditional British and Irish fairy tales. Lewis reportedly based his depiction of Narnia on the geography and scenery of the Mourne Mountains and "that part of Rostrevor which overlooks Carlingford Lough" (Guardian Unlimited 2005). Lewis cited George MacDonald's Christian fairy tales as an influence in writing the series.

[edit]

and if you read the controversies that are in the book on the wikipedia site....it's a book series that really Disney has never gone into those territories before....so that may be the reason because Disney didn't want to step out of there circle or bubble....Perhaps it will be a better series if Fox or Universal takes it over...as it does get dark and controversial....as I was reading the page...






http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chroni ... troversies

[jediliz]

whomever called Game Plan pre teen junk......I'm almost 30 and I LOVED that movie + own the DVD.


So, Disney dropped Voyage? Well, maybe Narnia doesn't NEED the MOUSE!

BTW, Disney Channel didn't air LWTW, ABC Family did & Disney Channel didn't air CARS, ABC Family did. They also added an unnecessary song to Prince Caspian.

I hope they find a different movie studio, cause Disney has LOST its way.

[Disneykid]

Well, this is hands down the worst Christmas present. Ever. I wasn't expecting them to do the whole series, but (like Albert) I was at least expecting Disney to stop at Dawn Treader to form a trilogy. I was initially furious over this news, which is partially why I haven't posted here sooner. I've cooled off, though, and now that I see Walden is shopping around for a new distributor, I feel a bit better. I hope Fox or some other studio picks up the series (with the same cast, of course) and finds success. That'll teach Disney a lesson for mishandling this franchise. I'm sure Walden Media and Douglas Gresham aren't going to give up so easily. The sequels, should they be made, can and will prove that Narnia is a more diversified world than what we've seen in the first two films. Bad form, Disney. Very bad form.

[Mooky]

Terrible news. I was really looking forward to "Dawn Treader". Like many people said, I'd rather have more Narnia films instead of countless POTC and NT sequels.

There's this theory going around that Disney deliberately put "Prince Caspian" in-between "Indy 4" and "Iron Man" so it would fail and they'd have reason to pull out of all further Narnia films. Yes, I know Walden Media insisted on the release date change, but Disney could have chosen any other date and they chose the worst month possible. Could there be some truth to this rumor, given that TLTW&TW (and possibly PC) is the only widely well-known Narnia book, so it would be a huge financial risk to adapt all of them.

[Ioz]

The chances that a 3rd Narnia movie with a reduced 100 million budget, better release date, and DVD sales losing money was slim to none. That's Disney for you. If they don't see something making X percentage in profit, they don't think it is worth their time. It reminds me of their DVD show releases that they can all the time. They should at least do this film and if profits decline again, don't make anymore. Disney has no heart.

[blackcauldron85]

Surely PC's DVD & Blu-ray sales will more than make up for the lackluster box office, right?!?!? Shouldn't Disney have waited to see how the DVD & Blu-ray sales are doing before deciding not to make the 3rd film?

The economy was worse in 2008 than in 2005, with a lot of people not going to the theater and just buying the DVD when it comes out. I'm not surprised, in that respect, that PC didn't do as well as TLTW&TW.

I'm a little shocked though. I guess I'm proud of Walden Media for believing in their product and shopping around their movie. But do they think that VotDT will do as well or better as PC? Maybe Walden Media is happy with PC's performance?

Surely the studios that are being shopped to know about PC's performance...a little part of me wonders why someone would take on VofDT knowing that PC underperformed...

[feedmelinguini]

They are going in the written order of the books and not necessarily the chronological one that some genius decided to change it to in the 90s.

That "genius" would be the author C.S. Lewis himself, speaking from the grave. He attempted to have the original publisher change the order to reflect the chronology, not the dates of publication. They refused and, until the rights to publish were transferred to the current publisher, the order stayed the same (with tLtWatW first). The current publisher decided to reflect the original author's intentions by renumbering them (with tMN first).

-Lon

[Disneykid]

I'm a little shocked though. I guess I'm proud of Walden Media for believing in their product and shopping around their movie. But do they think that VotDT will do as well or better as PC? Maybe Walden Media is happy with PC's performance?

Surely the studios that are being shopped to know about PC's performance...a little part of me wonders why someone would take on VofDT knowing that PC underperformed...

Well, in all fairness, Voyage of the Dawn Treader is much better known than Prince Caspian. In fact, I'd say VotDT is easily the second most popular book in the series after LWW. There's honestly no way it wouldn't have done better than PC unless it got released the same time as (or immediately after) an established sequel or remake that has a larger fanbase.

[rs_milo_whatever]

I still think it's odd that Disney dropped out so far into it, how a lot of actors already had a contract for more films, the new director was chosen, the new classroom edition DVDs, how well the first one (even the second film made good money)and how they had already casted Eustace. Now it makes sense why they kept pushing the filming dates further and further.


I'm still shocked, we all know how huge these films could have been. may be had they hired a better director (the Shrek guy? are you kidding me?) the franchise would have been even bigger.

[Jake Lipson]

I am bummed about this news, and feel that Disney is making a mistake in letting go of a unique franchise which is both family-friendly and fantasy epic, allowing them to satisfy the qualities behind the studio's name and get a tentpole fantasy action picture at the same time. Even something like Pirates, which was extrodinarily dark in the last two films, is questionable in fufilling both of those objectives at once.

A few points:

1) I *loved* the Narnia novels as a child, but struggled to get through Prince Caspian this summer in rereading before the film. Therefore, I was pleasntly surprised to love the film more than Wardrobe, which was exellent; the filmmakers really know how and where to put their emphasis in order to expand Lewis's spase work into something which works well in cinema. I can, however, understand why some people felt it was hewing too close to Lord of the Rings, and hope they keep in mind that it is a family film when making the next one, whichever studio picks it up.

2) As has already been much discussed here, Disney botched the release for this film, so I'm not going to say too much about that except that I agree with most of what's previously posted, and I think they are being hasty in dumping it. However -- the filmmakers are not without blame here. either. With the success of LWW, I think they probably got a little lazy and trigger-happy with the spending, which Disney was happy to grant when they expected LWW-sized grosses from it. But that doesn't mean the filmmakers couldn't have been responsible and spent less money to deliver a film of comprable quality.

I'm not going to pretend that I know how studios work up budgets for their films, and I understand that making a movie is difficult and costly. However, there have been plenty of very good tentpole pictures in recent years which came in on a low-ish budget; off the top of my head, 300 was $63 million, Stardust was $75 million, Hellboy II was $85 million and The Dark Knight was $185 million (granted, that's still quite pricey, but relative to what it could have cost, Christopher Nolan was economical.) The original Matrix was also cheap, relatively speaking, if I remember correctly. All of these films have special effects which look much more expensive than they actually were because the director and producer were kept honest by the studio, instead of having money thrown at them left and right. Stardust in particular is comprable to Narnia because it was a big, epic fantasy film which bombed at the box office due to inept marketing and a poor release slot...but it was cheap to make, did really well overseas and will make its money back a lot quicker than Caspian will when accounting for DVD sales, etc. Plus, it was short (127 minutes) and the theaters were able to get in more showtimes per day than they did with Caspian. And Ben Barnes was in both (he had a much smaller part in Stardust, but still, he was there and I am sure he noticed the difference in scae of what the studios provided.)

My point here is that there is NO reason Caspian, adapted from an extremely slight novel, needed to cost $200 million and run 144 minutes. (Wardrobe didn't need to run as long as it did either, although the popularity and general well-known nature of that novel made it less of an issue for them to make their money back on it regardless of running time.) Walden Media needs to realize, fast, that it is very possible to produce a quality fantasy epic on a reasonable budget. I have heard, though I don't recall where at the moment, that they wanted Disney to go 50/50 with them on a $200 million budget. If they were willing to cap Dawn Treader's budget at a more modest amount, Disney might have seen more value in keeping the franchise in-house. I also find it very difficult to believe that another studio will rescue Disney's castoff with a budget comprable to, or larger than, what Walden was asking Disney to allow.

3) That said, if Walden is able to come to a reasonable figure, I think there are lots of studios who would love to have this property. Due to the lack of quality of most of their Fox adaptations, Fox is not my first choice, although I imagine they would attempt to have the films stay relatively consistant with the ones already produced whatever studio takes them.

I would like to suggest, however, that Walden consider pitching it to Warner Bros. Harry Potter is on the way out -- in summer 2011, its last possible Potter film will be released, unless they manage to figure out a way to do Beedle the Bard -- and they are going to want a replacement big-ticket fantasy franchise. (Yes, I know they have The Hobbit in the works under the New Line banner, but they're only getting two movies out of that and then it's done, so it won't really be long-term.) Narnia, on the other hand, has five movies left and could provide them with a consistant stream of big fantasy tentpoles for a long time to come. Let's not forget, too, that LWW actually narrowly outgrossed Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire when they were both in theatrical release for the end of 2005-early 2006. This is not to imply that Dawn Treader or any of the other later books will nessescarily do that again, but it does demonstrate their box office muscle when the film is well marketed and well liked by audiences. Plus, there is a lot of overlap between the Harry and Narnia fanbases, and we have sen Warner treat Harry pretty well over the years on the whole (not entirely but still, pretty well), and thee is a lot of goodwill there. Not so much with Fox, which has not had a successful fantasy franchise in recent memory, totally butchered Eragon, and has a reputation of exercising too much control over its filmmakers.

So here is hoping that Narnia lands at Warner Bros. for the remaining five films and is treated right. Given reasonable budgets, consistant release slots and capable marketing, I think it will turn into a big success for them, and eventually make Disney regret passing up the chance to finish the franchise.

[blackcauldron85]

For the actors who already signed on (and for the actors who were in the other film(s)), is their contract with Disney, with Walden Media, or with both? I'm just curious, because if the contract is with Disney only, what happens now?