The second film had a poor release date and the third movie was horrible and poorly marketed.

One complaint I've heard from a lot of people is that they felt Narnia was trying too hard to pander to kids. I think the Disney-like jokes and the "cute" scenes with certain animals were off putting to maturing viewers. Also many people who liked LWW as a kid didnt like PC and VotDT as much because they grew up whereas the films didnt really mature. This is unlike Harry Potter in which the film's matured with the audience.

Seeing that VotDT came 5 years after LWW and was the kiddiest of the franchise, I can see why they lost their original audience.

Actually, the HP series saw a dip in box office with Azkaban, the first film that was more mature in tone. The reason why the films were still successful was because the books were wildly successful. The loyal book fans still supported the movie, even if some of the movie-only fans were turned off.

Narnia is supposed to be family friendly. Family friendly series' can do well over time (look at Toy Story) because there are always new children coming around, and adults who nurture their sense of child-like wonder tend to maintain that, too. My father was pushing 60 when LWW came out and he told me he loved it.

I think Walden was thinking along the same lines that you were when they made PC, assuming that part of HP's enduring success was the fact that the films aged in tone. PC is the "oldest" of the series in terms of target audience . . . by a significant margin. It's really a teen action movie, a different genre from the other two films, and the books. They hoped to bring in a new generation of teen audiences, and ignored the families and the young at heart who made LWW a smash hit with extremely strong box office legs. The end result was that they alienated the latter, and failed to successfully court the former. Because of the strong cultural association between "Narnia" and child-like wonder, teenagers will never swarm to a Narnia movie in droves, no matter how it's written, made or marketed. Teenagers who had grown out of their love for LWW, would go to Twilight, not a "darker" Narnia sequel.

Actually, the HP series saw a dip in box office with Azkaban, the first film that was more mature in tone. The reason why the films were still successful was because the books were wildly successful. The loyal book fans still supported the movie, even if some of the movie-only fans were turned off... Teenagers who had grown out of their love for LWW, would go to Twilight, not a "darker" Narnia sequel.

That is true. But part of HP's book success was due to the controversies around the books, and, in particular, fans of the books trying to guess how the series would end, especially as most of the movies were completed before that date. Up until 2005, when Half-blood Prince was released, the main controversy was due to Laura Mallory's attempts to get the series banned, but after 2005, when HBP was published, a section of the fandom disliked the romantic pairings so much, insisting that Harry's love interest was destined to be Hermione, not Ginny Weasley. HBP, the film, also was not as successful as its Order of the Phoenix predecessor, partly due to the way the romances were depicted in that film.

And the lack of romantic appeal for teenagers, even in the books, is one good reason why Narnia doesn't do so well with teenagers, cinematically. In VDT, the film failed to capitalise on what little there really was, when Caspian meets his future wife. Furthermore, the 'romance' that was inserted into PC wasn't to teenage taste, besides not being mentioned in the book, even if it was true to Susan's character development throughout the series.

Of the remaining Narnia books romance isn't really a feature, either, regardless of how 'dark' some of the books are. In HHB, Aravis and Shasta start out barely on speaking terms, and if they do marry eventually, it still isn't all that evident when both children finally reach Anvard. Eustace and Jill have genuine grievances against each other at the beginning of SC, and it is only their flight from bullies and their Narnia mission which brings them together as friends, let alone anything deeper. At no point in the series are Digory or Polly ever likely to be romantically connected, however friendly they were to each other throughout their lives.

Or, do you count Uncle Andrew's fascination with Jadis? Or Queen Susan's dithering over whether or not she should marry Rabadash?