Thursday, January 29, 2009

A Fox Takes The Lion From The Mouse...


It appears that the Mouse's decision to no longer make Narnia films is the Fox's gain...

Twentieth Century Fox that is. Fox will now co-produce with Walden Media on future Narnia movies now that Walt Disney Pictures has chosen to not renue their relationship.

So now “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” will be coming with the Fox logo instead of that lovely castle.

Developing...

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Im just extatic that they are still going to be produced. however disney did lose a good franchise

Anonymous said...

Disney what are you doing?!
Narnia was gold! You had five money making films set! And you gave it all to Fox?!
The absolutely worst studio of all time.. I bet Fox sues Disney over the last two films they've released.
Good bye Narnia... Hello Eragon *gulp*

Anonymous said...

Walden was hard to deal with, and Narnia 3 will be produced with a much lower budget than Prince Caspian, and with a different director.

Anonymous said...

Disney will regret this. Dawn Treader was the one Narnia fans were excited about and I think the box numbers will reflect that.

Anonymous said...

Disney is too arrogant for leaving this lovely franchise; it seems like they can't see how bad they scheduled Prince Caspian during a busy box office season. They should have stuck it out and see how Dawn Treader would perform before ditching the franchise altogether; there was so much potential and possibilities...

But it seems like Disney is focussing much more on Sci-fi content these days, with Race to Witch Mountain being the genesis of this new action-packed era.

Unknown said...

I have never read the books but wasn't impressed with Prince Caspian. Don't know if that had to do with any leadership issues in Disney's control or if it was due to other factors. I thought it was difficult to follow and generally disjointed.

I do think that Disney erred by trying to market it as a summer flick. That thing had November/December written all over it.

Anonymous said...

it was all about walden media and disney conflict. its a shame but im not so sure if disney really wanted to give narnia up.

Doopey said...

I'm so glad that this series is still going forward, and I cannot overstate what a colossal blunder it was for Disney to let it go.

-doopey

Anonymous said...

Having never read the books, I have to agree that the two movies released so far were confusing and, at least for me, not all that entertaining. And as others have stated, the decision by Disney to leave the franchise had a lot to do with its relationship with Walden Media. Frankly, I think that Disney did the right thing by getting out now.

As for the statement that Disney is focusing much more on sci-fi content these days, what do you call "Alice in Wonderland", "Prince of Persia" and "Pirates of the Caribbean 4"?

Anonymous said...

Disney sucks for dumping this franchise. These films deserve a budget and a quality of entertainment on the scale of Lord of the Rings. Yeah, so they are kids books but I guess Disney is no longer interested in making quality children's and family entertainment anymore. Hey Disney... F*** YOU!

Anonymous said...

^That's one angry lion.

Anonymous said...

Having read the books, seen the original British TV version and the recent Disney movies, all I can say is that I am glad the Disney dropped the franchise.

The first film, while getting a HUGE boost from religious supporters, was just not the great film they tried to make it out to be. It kind of fell in the range of the Bakshi "Lord of the Rings", which was not at all comparable to the latest Peter Jackson version.

It's apparent that, given the box office results of the second Narnia film, that even many of the former religious supporters didn't find it all that compelling. And I believe that many serious Sci-Fi/Fantasy fans would agree.

Anonymous said...

I wonder how the movies will be marketed as a set. Part Disney, Part Fox. I haven't seen it done before. I'm sure Disney will make a fuss more than Fox.

Anonymous said...

I also can not believe that Disney did not try and at least do the third film. The conflict between Walden pictures exhuberant budgets and demands of for more profits with a renewed contract of course make the departure seem reasonable.

Prince Caspian had a terrible timeslot and Disney should have stuck with their original release date. I do understand though that Walden Media was also involved in the reason for its release date change. They felt they had a box office hit for the Holidays with "The Water Horse" and did not want another of their movies killing its thunder. well they chose the wrong movie to reschedule thinking Narnia could do no wrong. A late Spring release would have probably been better than the busy summer

Anonymous said...

Walden wanted a bigger slice of the pie but wanted Disney to pony up $200 million in production budget and then marketing dollars on top of that!

Smart decision to get out.

Anonymous said...

I was mad at Disney bailing on Narnia until I read what a money-grubbing screw Walden Media is. Can't say I blame Disney for not appreciating Walden's threats after LWW did so well. IMO it's unfortunate Disney didn't gobble up the rights to the Narnia series instead of Walden. Walden makes subpar schlock. For that reason, I have no real hope that things will improve under Fox.

Anonymous said...

Walden is a publisher who tried to become a production company but don't know the Hollywood business game. They thought they had the next Lord of the Rings in their hand and thought they could capitalize on it. Disney understands the business side of the film industry and knew that the profit margin versus production costs was narrow and Prince Caspian only proved that Disney was correct in lower production costs. Walden should have taken a smaller percentage and stuck with it. Now they are eating humble pie just so FOX will distribute with a significantly lower budget. For Disney it's a loss of having their brand associated with a marketable franchise. They both screwed themselves. And yes, it will only complicate DVD sales which will have to be shared 3 ways. So everyone now has to be happy with less.