Reviews, Interviews , News, Commentaries, My Top 5 Movies, Best-Of Lists, Filmmakers of Faith, Film ForumThe Lion, the Witch, and the Box Office
It's been a little over a decade since Walden Media acquired the film rights to C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, and for Walden co-founder and president Micheal Flaherty, it's been an exhilarating ride—even if it has been something of a roller-coaster.
The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe opened in December 2005 to a massive audience, earning more than $1 billion in box office ($745 million) and DVD sales ($332 million) combined. Critical reviews were good (76 percent positive at Rotten Tomatoes), and the franchise was off to a great start.
But then came the next two films—2008's Prince Caspian and 2010's Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Caspian brought in less than half of the domestic box office that LWW had drawn, and VDT only about a third as much. Critical ratings at Rotten Tomatoes dropped from 76 percent positive for LWW to 67 percent for PC to a tepid 50 percent for VDT, which releases to DVD and Blu-Ray this week
With the dropping numbers, we asked Flaherty if the franchise was in trouble, and if not, which of the Chronicles would be the next film? The Silver Chair comes next in the sequence of books, but Flaherty said Walden and 20th Century Fox, which distributes the movies, have mostly decided on The Magician's Nephew—Narnia's "origins story"—for their next project. (Narnia scholar Devin Brown says Lewis himself would agree with that choice; see his reasons here.)
Why do The Magician's Nephew next?
It's a creative decision in terms of what story we felt has the best opportunity to draw the largest audience. The box office has pretty closely followed the sales pattern of the books. Prince Caspian sells about half of the books of Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe, and it did about half of the box office. Caspian sells about a third more books than Dawn Treader, and it did about a third more box office. That pattern continues to decline with Silver Chair being the weakest book in the series in terms of consumer demand.
We just think the origin tale of The Magician's Nephew is a great one, and it brings back the characters that have proven to be the most popular—a lot of Aslan and the White Witch. It explains the origin of the lamppost and the wardrobe. The order of these books is something that few people agree on anyway. While Silver Chair certainly continues Eustace's adventure, we never knew when Magician's Nephew would come in the sequence of films. We never assumed it would be last, and we never assumed it would be first.
A lot of people say The Magician's Nephew is their favorite.
In book sales, it is right behind The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. If you look at the superhero stories or any great franchise in recent years, they all have an origin story. We've yet to make our origin story. But rather than lead with Magician's Nephew, we're following Lewis's lead on this—that it's a lot more interesting if you've been teased with these things, like the wardrobe, rather than explain it right up front. Once people are familiar with the lamppost, the wardrobe, Narnia, and Aslan, Magician's Nephew is a lot more powerful, to go back and explain where all of this came from.
Dawn Treader did poorly in the U.S., but quite well with the foreign box office. Did the low domestic numbers prompt any conversation of calling it quits?
No, because international box office was so strong—three times the domestic. We always look at these things from the international standpoint, that cumulative number.
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Amanda Corcoran
I am disappointed with the adaptation of the Narnia books to the big screen. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, is the closest to the book. In Prince Caspian, they basically skipped over the telling of Caspian's story, added an attack on the castle, then went back to the orginal story, again making Peter looking like a sap with the White Witch, who is not present ANYWHERE in Prince Caspian. From what I have read of the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, they now have to save Narnia from some green mist by finding seven swords......what's with that? C.S. Lewis wrote each of these stories with a specific purpose in mind. I hate to think how they are going to ruin my next three favorites, The Silver Chair, the Magician's Nephew, and the Horse and His Boy. The director, producer and Douglas Gresham need to get their heads out of the clouds and back into the books and start using the orginal stories. Then the US box attendance might just go back up. Not to hard to figure out...is it???
Daniell Ritchie
As an author and filmmaker myself, I understand that there will be differences between a book and a film adaption. I cherish the idea that there is a team of people somewhere working day in and out to take an author's work, and fill out every detail and bring it to screen. The author layed out an underpainting of sorts. I for one am not upset by the process that takes place. I'm fascinated by it. I think, what a wonderful perspective they've added to it. I would have never thought of that in a million years. I never thought it would look like that. As for the Narnia films, they're great. Each one is so different. I can't imagine a reboot being needed, as each one is unique already. Darn Treader has actually ruined me for other films. I don't want to see entertainment anymore. I want to see that lion that shows up and roars, and suddenly everything is better somehow. "He must know what he's doing." DT is my favorite of the 3. It's a strong film with a great ending.
James Picard
Well, to be fair to the film series, PC wasn't going to be easy to adapt to the silver screen, and neither was VDT. You have to make them appealing to general audiences in order to avoid a box-office flop. Otherwise, they can't make more. If VDT was made exactly like the story, it wouldn't be a good movie. For while it is a great book, and I do enjoy it, it doesn't translate well to film unless you change it. It needed to have the threat to Narnia, or it'd be hard to care. A story about going from one adventure to the next is all fine and good, but unless there is a link, we don't get excited about it. And PC was no exception to that either. It may have had an overarching plot, but it still wasn't all that exciting. LWW was easy to adapt, because so much of it would've easily worked on film. That doesn't follow for all of them. I'm not trying to say the books are bad, on the contrary, I enjoy them very much. But a faithful adaption would not have made a good MOVIE.