Is this thread to ask questions about the existing Narnia films or about the upcoming Narnia films or about both?

So far it's been a mixture!
It is useful to check other threads (go past the first page of the listings, as there are lots of topics) in case your more specific question is answered on on one of them.

Ask away!

Hello!  Does anyone know the filming location for Professor Kirke's house in the 1988 BBC adaptation of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe?  I have not found this information searching online.

@mister_macready Hi and welcome!

Without trying this myself first, have you tried looking at all the acknowledgements in the credits for LWW? It may be traceable.

Posted by: @coracle

@mister_macready Hi and welcome!

Without trying this myself first, have you tried looking at all the acknowledgements in the credits for LWW? It may be traceable.

Thanks for the reply, this was a good idea!  Unfortunately the only location I saw listed in the credits for any episode was Manorbier, the Welsh castle that was used for both the Witch's castle and Cair Paravel.

BBC didn't have quite the budget that Walden had (!) so I guess that they used an existing house (especially for the exterior) rather than lots of sets. It may have been one where the owners did not wish to have people visit, so was not named.

Edit: I'm wondering about Shropshire, England. One of my searches today brought up Hawkstone Park Follies as an outdoor location for some of the filming.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/shropshire/content/articles/2005/12/08/hawkstone_narnia_feature.shtml
Looking at BBC LWW this evening I can see building styles common to Shrewsbury and Cheshire. I will follow your search with great interest.

I think it worked better using real houses and landscapes in the UK than using the artificial sets and computer generated images as were used in the movies. The BBC Narnia did things the old way, and although it would have been better if more money was available to the people who created the programs they got the locations right.  The houses in the Walden films looked nice, but if they were sets rather than real houses there is something not entirely real about them. It may not always be so easy to get the owner’s permission to film inside a house so I can understand why they chose to build the sets.  There may have been more legal difficulties in making the movies and using the locations than with using private properties in filming the BBC version.

I googled and browsed some historic homes of Shropshire, Somerset, and Pembrokeshire (the Welsh county where Manorbier is) and didn't see any that seemed to be matches.  I think I might be at a dead-end though.  Sifting through historic homes of Great Britain seems like finding a needle in a very, very large haystack.  If I really felt committed enough to really try and find out, I guess I could attempt to contact someone involved in the production.  The production designer has a website that lists an email address, who knows if he still checks it!  https://www.spaldingdesign.com

i have not posted on here in years. Sorry if the answer to my question has already been discussed elsewhere in this forum,I did look some.

Is there a date at which Netflix has to do something with Narnia or they will be forced to sell the rights or loose the rights?

@ramandu77 oddly enough I thought about this yesterday!  I guess you are thinking of the 7 years wait that we saw between Walden and the next franchise user.... my understanding is it's part of the contract, but is sometimes simply bought out by the owners of the material. 

I think the Netflix deal is different  - they paid for exclusive use of the material. This serves to prevent any other company from making movies or TV serials of Narnia. 

It's a 'dog in the manger' situation at present.  Nobody else can enjoy its use and they don't seem to want or need it, except as a control.

@ramandu77 

Very little has been announced about the deal. Even the amount paid for the option was seemingly reported incorrectly, as it was initially said to be "slightly less than the $250m that Amazon paid for Lord of the Rings", however we now know that the $250m figure was actually Netflix's own bid for Lord of the Rings. Perhaps the best we can say then is that both companies paid around $220m to option the rights on each respective property.

In terms of the length of the option, all we can look at is precedent from other properties, which from my limited knowledge and experience tend to be that they extend in perpetuity, but will expire if left unused for around 10 or so years.

10 years was the maximum period of inactivity specified in the deals that 20th Century Fox had on The Fantastic Four and Daredevil properties (both of which have since lapsed, causing the rights to revert to Marvel) and according to several recent reports the distribution rights Universal Studios had retained on the Hulk and Namor properties have similarly expired recently allowing Marvel to do more stuff with both of those brands going forward. Spiderman however isn't going to be reverting to Marvel anytime soon as Sony are keeping that property very active in order to sustain the option. 

It's hard to say therefore whether any of this is a universal rule of movie options, but for now I'd say 10 years looks like as good a guess as any. Walden's previous option on Narnia also expired after 7 or 8 years of inactivity, so expect something in that ballpark.

Of course, all of these things are open to negotiation - if someone really wanted to buy Netflix out of their Narnia option prematurely it would just be a case of paying the right amount of money.

@ramandu77 

Just as a follow up to your earlier question, there was an article on WhatsOnNetflix a couple of days ago which seemed to confirm that 10 years of inactivity is the period of time that has to elapse before Netflix loses the rights to an Intellectual Property that they have optioned.

https://www.whats-on-netflix.com/news/no-wednesday-isnt-leaving-netflix/

Posted by: @mister_macready

Hello!  Does anyone know the filming location for Professor Kirke's house in the 1988 BBC adaptation of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe?  I have not found this information searching online.

@mister_macready 

By pure coincidence I managed to stumble across the answer to this question!...  it is Llanvihangel Court in Llanvihangel Crucorney near Abergavenny in Wales.

So I had been pondering this question for a while since you posted it, and whilst the architecture of the manor house that we see in the BBC Narnia Series is fairly generic of most Elizabethan Manors in the UK (of which there must be hundreds) I was struck by the somewhat unique set of steps that runs up from the parking circle to the house entrance.

Anyway, despite trawling Google for houses with such a set of steps, I came up empty handed and gave up looking a few months back....

Untill today, when by pure happenstance, whilst looking for updates on a completely different movie, I saw a screenshot from the TV show "A Discovery of Witches" which had all the main characters walking up that exact same distinctive set of steps.

Thus a little bit of follow-up searching for that series' filming locations yielded the name of Llanvihangel Court as the location.

For confirmation, I've also verified it against the original BBC Narnia scenes - the  design of the steps match, the external profile of the house and roof matches, the view out from the top of the stairs over the parking circle matches, and it also makes sense from a geographical perspective based on where we know they filmed the rest of the BBC Narnia series.

From the looks of things, it's now a fairly popular wedding venue for hire....

https://www.theweddingsecret.co.uk/llanvihangel-court-wedding-venues-south-wales.html

Posted by: @icarus

Posted by: @mister_macready

Hello!  Does anyone know the filming location for Professor Kirke's house in the 1988 BBC adaptation of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe?  I have not found this information searching online.

@mister_macready 

By pure coincidence I managed to stumble across the answer to this question!...  it is Llanvihangel Court in Llanvihangel Crucorney near Abergavenny in Wales.

So I had been pondering this question for a while since you posted it, and whilst the architecture of the manor house that we see in the BBC Narnia Series is fairly generic of most Elizabethan Manors in the UK (of which there must be hundreds) I was struck by the somewhat unique set of steps that runs up from the parking circle to the house entrance.

Anyway, despite trawling Google for houses with such a set of steps, I came up empty handed and gave up looking a few months back....

Untill today, when by pure happenstance, whilst looking for updates on a completely different movie, I saw a screenshot from the TV show "A Discovery of Witches" which had all the main characters walking up that exact same distinctive set of steps.

Thus a little bit of follow-up searching for that series' filming locations yielded the name of Llanvihangel Court as the location.

For confirmation, I've also verified it against the original BBC Narnia scenes - the  design of the steps match, the external profile of the house and roof matches, the view out from the top of the stairs over the parking circle matches, and it also makes sense from a geographical perspective based on where we know they filmed the rest of the BBC Narnia series.

From the looks of things, it's now a fairly popular wedding venue for hire....

https://www.theweddingsecret.co.uk/llanvihangel-court-wedding-venues-south-wales.html

Holy cow!  Thank you so much!  After 20+ years of wondering I never thought I’d have answer for this question!

Posted by: @icarus

@ramandu77 

10 years was the maximum period of inactivity specified in the deals that 20th Century Fox had on The Fantastic Four and Daredevil properties (both of which have since lapsed, causing the rights to revert to Marvel) and according to several recent reports the distribution rights Universal Studios had retained on the Hulk and Namor properties have similarly expired recently allowing Marvel to do more stuff with both of those brands going forward. Spiderman however isn't going to be reverting to Marvel anytime soon as Sony are keeping that property very active in order to sustain the option. 

As an interesting follow-up to the earlier question about how long movie options last for... the other day the "Incredible Hulk" movie produced by Universal Pictures back in 2008 suddenly appeared on Disney Plus, almost exactly 15 years to the day after it was released in theatres.

Whether this was the result of a targeted move by the now-Disney owned Marvel Studios to try and reclaim all of its back catalogue or not, the precise timing of it happening, along with the relative lack of fanfare, would suggest to me that part of the previous deal with Universal Pictures had expired at the 15 year mark.

So slightly longer than the 10 years I've found quoted in previous examples, but still gives you a good idea of a ballpark figure.