What Narnia hasn't got that is in both LOTR and HP, is a touch of romance. But please let's not complain about that. Uncle Andrew and Jadis being really romantic? Ugh!

Helen and Frank are a young married couple in MN am I correct? And why should people only see movies because of romance/ Why is romance so important to be put in every story now? That is why the Narnia stories are so unique or technically (were) straight up until Prince Caspian came out.

Also Vampire Academy is a series of six books. It's going to be another movie series that could possibly get in the way of the Narnia films as well.

The only possible effect I can think of: If they ever make LB, they will undoubtedly want to split it into two. Just because...

What Narnia hasn't got that is in both LOTR and HP, is a touch of romance. But please let's not complain about that. Uncle Andrew and Jadis being really romantic? Ugh!

I wouldn't say lack of romance is what separates Narnia from Lord of the Rings (I can't say anything about HP since I haven't seen it). I mean, they're totally different types of stories. Sure, they're both fantasies. But that doesn't necessarily mean they belong in the same category. Each fantasy can be much, much different from any other fantasy.

LOTR is very cinematic. Besides its beautiful prose and in-depth history, it has extensively developed characters, action, high adventure, danger, darkness that is such a threat it seems that it must win in the end.

Narnia, (Which is neither better nor worse than LOTR) is much different than that. True, it does have adventure, there are some battles, and bad guys. But the focus isn't on that at all, and the battles aren't very detailed. If you compare the Battle of Beruna in the book LWW to the Battle at Helm's Deep in LOTR, you'll see a tremendous difference.

Lord of the Rings is the sort of story I want to read when I want excitement, characters I love to hate, characters I root for and cry for. It's the sort of thing that wakes me up. Narnia is the pleasant kind of story I like to read when sitting by the fireside on a rainy day, drinking hot cocoa. They're both wonderful stories in their own way. But guess which one is going to get more hype when it's adapted to film.

I think one of the problems with the Narnia films was they tried to make it something it wasn't. They tried to make it epic, like LOTR. But when people look at the Narnia books and think about what they love about them, it's not action, or adventure, the villains, the danger, or big huge EPICNESS. It's the spiritual journey, it's Lucy learning to trust Aslan, it's the fact that, although there are villains, we know we don't need to fear them because Aslan is there. That's what makes Narnia special. I think that's what really separates it from LOTR.

*sigh* If only they could make a quiet, accurate miniseries of Narnia...

~Riella

The only possible effect I can think of: If they ever make LB, they will undoubtedly want to split it into two. Just because...

......I think one of the problems with the Narnia films was they tried to make it something it wasn't. They tried to make it epic, like LOTR. But when people look at the Narnia books and think about what they love about them, it's not action, or adventure, the villains, the danger, or big huge EPICNESS. It's the spiritual journey, it's Lucy learning to trust Aslan, it's the fact that, although there are villains, we know we don't need to fear them because Aslan is there. That's what makes Narnia special. I think that's what really separates it from LOTR.

I agree so much with this! You hit it on the nail! I don't want epic-ness. I want intelligent simplicity and good storytelling that has me emotionally invested in all of the characters and their journeys with Aslan. I want to see how they're changed by meeting/being with/being guided by Him.

Also Vampire Academy is a series of six books. It's going to be another movie series that could possibly get in the way of the Narnia films as well.

Vampire Academy? That sounds like a deliberate rip-off of both Twilight and Harry Potter. I read that title and I think Eragon. I highly doubt that franchise will make any sequels, much less five.

The only possible effect I can think of: If they ever make LB, they will undoubtedly want to split it into two. Just because...

tCoNtLBp1: An Unexpected Battle and tCoNtLBp2: They're Not Coming Back Again.

The only possible effect I can think of: If they ever make LB, they will undoubtedly want to split it into two. Just because...

tCoNtLBp1: An Unexpected Battle and tCoNtLBp2: They're Not Coming Back Again.

LB is so short, I think they'd have trouble making one movie with it.

Splitting The Hobbit made sense, since it contains extra things about Dol Guldor/The White Council. Plus half the book took place trying to survive the journey, and the other half was spent trying to reclaim the mountain. So it had two basic plotlines, making two movies more sensible. LB has only one, so should make one movie.

~Riella

Also Vampire Academy is a series of six books. It's going to be another movie series that could possibly get in the way of the Narnia films as well.

Vampire Academy? That sounds like a deliberate rip-off of both Twilight and Harry Potter. I read that title and I think Eragon. I highly doubt that franchise will make any sequels, much less five.

I highly disagree But I wont explain any further. Don't want to go off topic here.

I think it will go up. Why? One less major competitor. Movies may be easier to schedule as well.

Narnia is an original, wonderful book series, but the movies were cinematically shot in such ways as reminiscent of the early Harry Potter (HP) movies and a cleaner Pirates of the Caribbean (PoC). That's what I meant.
I only had seen the first two HP movies years and years ago when they came out on DVD, so I just saw the first one again last week. I've seen LWW so many times, it was easy to see bits of HP in LWW now. The sets in LWW were similar to those in HP (I didn't say identical, I just mean it's similar). Also the color scheme for England and the whole train station. I love the train journey in Narnia and I think that scene, if compared with the HP train scene is much nicer in many ways. We all know that Adamson, while being extremely creative, was still launching the Narnia movies off the HP popularity.
With all that said, there are other reasons why I see similarities between Narnia movies and HP movies; my point is that HP is burnt out now. Narnia might have a resurgence in the future, but I think that superheros and hobbits are more likely to be popular for a while.
(now that I think of it, VDT isn't much like PoC. The only similarities is sea-monsters and having as many plot-holes as swiss cheese. I take it back )

I chose "No change." For now, I really doubt that HP will affect people's interest for Narnia. The two have some things in common, but neither are the same thing, and HP seems to have much more popularity as books and movies than Narnie does right now. If anything, eventually, something else that's more like HP or the Twilight series, along with the Hobbit, will replace the void that HP is leaving. There's no way Narnia will ever get as famous as those movies.

All that HP will do is likely make the movie makers think that they need to put more of what makes HP great into Narnia. That better not be the case from now on, but at this point, I don't know...

Here are a few articles that I found interesting.

First, from the Chicago Tribune, which speculates on what the next "Harry Potter" will be. Unfortunately the article is short and focuses on new book franchises, but I am including it here since a few titles mentioned in this thread are also mentioned in the article.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-07-14/news/ct-talk-after-harry-potter-0714-20110714_1_harry-potter-lord-voldemort-famous-boy-wizard

Second, Yahoo! Movies lists what it believes to be the least successful Harry Potter model imitators in the past ten years. Thankfully, Narnia is not on the list.

http://movies.yahoo.com/photos/collections/gallery/3502/the-least-successful-potter-imitators#photo0

I also ran across a website that suggested books to read after reading Potter. I think it is significant that The Hobbit is at the top of that list. No Narnia titles are included on the main list, but The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe is mentioned on the Reader's Choice list.

http://www.life-after-harry-potter.com/

A blog on Forbes has an interesting question to pose by comparing HP to Narnia, (something that often is done here in other threads). Note that the writer says that he loved the first and third Narnia films. -More evidence that for some people out there, VDT was an improvement to the franchise.

http://blogs.forbes.com/benzingainsights/2011/07/15/is-harry-potter-better-than-tolkien-narnia-and-star-wars/?feed=rss_people

Follow the link at the end of that article to find another blog, claiming that Narnia is better than HP:

http://www.benzinga.com/general/11/07/1768662/harry-potter-just-go-away-already

The purpose for including those two links is not to start the old argument all over again, (those who would like to debate this topic further may do so elsewhere) but rather to show that Narnia is being mentioned in articles that center on the end of the Potter franchise (and perhaps it shows the media's softening to VDT seven months after its release). This lends evidence to the "Interest in Narnia will go up" option.

An article from the Jackson Sun also links Potter to Narnia:

http://www.jacksonsun.com/article/20110714/NEWS01/107140315/Fans-eager-for-Deathly-Hallows-II-as-Potter-series-wraps-up?odyssey=tab|mostpopular|img|FRONTPAGE

To be fair, I found at least one website that treated the Narnia movies as drastically inferior to the HP movies, but it was not appropriate to link to.

Interesting articles, Movie! Especially the mentions of Golden Compass, Series of Unfortunate Events, Eragon and the recent Percy Jackson movies.

What Narnia hasn't got that is in both LOTR and HP, is a touch of romance. But please let's not complain about that. Uncle Andrew and Jadis being really romantic? Ugh!

I wouldn't say lack of romance is what separates Narnia from Lord of the Rings (I can't say anything about HP since I haven't seen it). I mean, they're totally different types of stories. Sure, they're both fantasies. But that doesn't necessarily mean they belong in the same category. Each fantasy can be much, much different from any other fantasy.

LOTR is very cinematic. Besides its beautiful prose and in-depth history, it has extensively developed characters, action, high adventure, danger, darkness that is such a threat it seems that it must win in the end.

Narnia, (Which is neither better nor worse than LOTR) is much different than that. True, it does have adventure, there are some battles, and bad guys. But the focus isn't on that at all, and the battles aren't very detailed. If you compare the Battle of Beruna in the book LWW to the Battle at Helm's Deep in LOTR, you'll see a tremendous difference.

Lord of the Rings is the sort of story I want to read when I want excitement, characters I love to hate, characters I root for and cry for. It's the sort of thing that wakes me up. Narnia is the pleasant kind of story I like to read when sitting by the fireside on a rainy day, drinking hot cocoa. They're both wonderful stories in their own way. But guess which one is going to get more hype when it's adapted to film.

I think one of the problems with the Narnia films was they tried to make it something it wasn't.

That is precisely what I mean. Twilight is mostly catering for the romantic crowd and yes, there always tends to be romance - grown-up romance - in epic films like LOTR and even HP. JK Rowling who wrote the HP series has only one criticism of C.S.Lewis and that was his avoidance of the whole messy romantic side of growing up, as epitomised by the likes of Susan. JK Rowling felt that she would have preferred books which handled adolescence better.

In PC, Suspian definitely was a nod to the whole idea of epic movies and chivalry, in particular, as were extended battle scenes etc. And yes, the last HP film is certainly epic, and yes, they drew out the Hogwarts battle scene a bit longer than was called for. The difference is that the kissing and romance in HP were definitely part of the story as the characters grew up and finally reached adulthood. Unlike the Narnia books.

As for LOTR, there are two romantic lead. There is Arwen, who is giving up immortality for Aragorn, who therefore has to be worthy of it by defeating Sauron and reclaiming his inheritance. And there is Eowyn who also falls in love with Aragorn but finds that Faramir is a more suitable match. Part of the success of the epic LOTR films is the sympathetic way these characters were treated in the film.

I also agree with you that Narnia caters for different interests and come to think about it, all seven Narnia stories are internal journeys of one kind or another, externalised to be understandable. Like you, I'd like a nice quiet Narnia miniseries, but I think that BBC has already been there and done that - but only partly which even at the time was frustrating.

Narnia is an original, wonderful book series, but the movies were cinematically shot in such ways as reminiscent of the early Harry Potter (HP) movies and a cleaner Pirates of the Caribbean (PoC). That's what I meant.

There is a good reason for any perceived resemblance between HP and Narnia. They both come from the same part of the world, and as I've noted elsewhere, J.K. Rowling was also inspired by C.S.Lewis. British Railways are still British Railways right up to the present. And although JK Rowling never set out to convert people to Christianity the way C.S.Lewis did, the HP series is also based on internal journeys of one kind or another.

On the other hand, I'm not at all sure what series of books PoC is based on. Like Star Wars or Indiana Jones, it seems to grow under its own momentum. Although wildly popular and satisfyingly swashbucklingly adventurous, they seem to be broadly based on real-life events and every single sailors' cliche you have ever heard of. So far we have had Blackbeard, accursed treasure, the pirate's coin, the accursed treasure, Davy Jones' locker, Davy Jones, himself, the Flying Dutchman, and much else. We have had voodoo, and in the last episode, a borrowing of Magician's Nephew's Wood between the Worlds that leaves me alarmed.

What worries me is that when Magician's Nephew finally gets made, it will need to be careful to distance itself from PoC's borrowing. Otherwise, people will tend to say that MN is ripping off PoC on stranger shores rather than the other way around.

........Second, Yahoo! Movies lists what it believes to be the least successful Harry Potter model imitators in the past ten years. Thankfully, Narnia is not on the list.

http://movies.yahoo.com/photos/collections/gallery/3502/the-least-successful-potter-imitators#photo0.........

The purpose for including those two links is not to start the old argument all over again, (those who would like to debate this topic further may do so elsewhere) but rather to show that Narnia is being mentioned in articles that center on the end of the Potter franchise (and perhaps it shows the media's softening to VDT seven months after its release). This lends evidence to the "Interest in Narnia will go up" option......

Thanks Movie Aristotle for those insightful articles! The Yahoo one which omits mentioning Narnia....appears to be showing clearly those types of movies where there is no 'Christian' subtext/symbolism at all involved? Or if there is any it's attacked. I confess it is bad for me to argue this if I haven't seen any of those films....(read about some of them mostly) but they all seem to focus on young kids and magic/high fantasy...there's nothing underlying-ly Christian about them?

So that sort of reinforces my personal belief that nothing much will change with the Potter movies ending because audiences don't really like Christianity infused with their "young kids using magic/high fantasy movies-thereby saving the world"? (BTW is there another thread somewhere else on the board to discuss this?...probably an old thread on the Narnia and Christianity section...I'll go look there....don't want to go far too off topic here with that).

Though if the powers that be making the next Narnia movies do surprise us and make good quality Narnia movies next....it might attract back the general audience that loves fantasy and magic (maybe) and hopefully build (or re-build trust with) the existing 'faith' audiences for Narnia.......though seriously can movie makers really serve two different types of audiences at the same time? Maybe. They did it with LWW.

Seems like all of the regular secular-ly influenced fantasy/magic movies want Christianity hidden and swept under the rug. And even when one hint of Christianity is shown in a Narnia movie...there are still those out there to criticize any appearance of it.

.......
That is precisely what I mean. Twilight is mostly catering for the romantic crowd and yes, there always tends to be romance - grown-up romance - in epic films like LOTR and even HP. JK Rowling who wrote the HP series has only one criticism of C.S.Lewis and that was his avoidance of the whole messy romantic side of growing up, as epitomised by the likes of Susan. JK Rowling felt that she would have preferred books which handled adolescence better......

That's interesting Rowling said that. I love Narnia because C.S. Lewis doesn't explore adolescence. He explores everything right up to post-adolescence romance and angst. And very sparingly. Which I love a lot! He focuses on childhood spiritual journeys as Ithilwen mentioned above.

As others have said, he did write the Narnia books for kids...he was not writing them for the teen romance crowd (of which there are definitely more voraciously fanatical numbers of these days).

That's more having to do with the times in which his books were written....plus he really wasn't that sort of a writer any way. He only wanted to write what he would have wanted to read (which probably meant that he didn't want to read teen romances).

I voted for option: "Interest in Narnia will go up". Mainly because I think the studios will be interested in finding out how interested the fans of Narnia and those who like fantasy will be.

It may be that a stronger version rating wise (PG-13) might be the deciding factor. If so, what will the estate do? MN should be PG (IMHO) but what about the rest? We'll see...

Thanks Movie Aristotle for those insightful articles! The Yahoo one which omits mentioning Narnia....appears to be showing clearly those types of movies where there is no 'Christian' subtext/symbolism at all involved? Or if there is any it's attacked. I confess it is bad for me to argue this if I haven't seen any of those films....(read about some of them mostly) but they all seem to focus on young kids and magic/high fantasy...there's nothing underlying-ly Christian about them?

So that sort of reinforces my personal belief that nothing much will change with the Potter movies ending because audiences don't really like Christianity infused with their "young kids using magic/high fantasy movies-thereby saving the world"? (BTW is there another thread somewhere else on the board to discuss this?...probably an old thread on the Narnia and Christianity section...I'll go look there....don't want to go far too off topic here with that).

I think the article was comparing those 8 films with Harry Potter because like Harry Potter they are based on books and series written in the last decade or so. Even the oldest movie, 2004's Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate events, which did best domestically with $118,634,549, did poorly overseas, earning $90,439,096. The production budget for that movie was $140,000,000.

Of the others, none did very well in the USA box office. Even the recent 2010 Percy Jackson movie, with a $95,000,000 budget, and which earned $226,497,209 worldwide, only earned $88,761,720 domestically. And the rest only fetched $75,000,000 or less domestically. In some cases much less. Especially City of Ember, or Inkheart which earned less than $10,000,000 domestically. Even the Spiderwick Chronicles from 2008 only received $162,839,667 overall, $91,644,614 coming from overseas.

It seems if it wasn't for good overseas earnings, that many movies would sink without trace. 2006's Golden Compass, which had easily the largest production budget of $180,000,000, was lucky to earn $302,127,136, a partial compensation for its miserable USA box office of $70,083,519.

Seen in this perspective, compared with the anti-Narnia Golden Compass,VDT has done really well,especially as it was a sequel rather than a new film starting a series. Apart from Golden Compass, and perhaps Eragon, I doubt their Christian content or otherwise has been a factor in any way.