@moonlit_centaur 

I remember reading somewhere that Tolkien said that The Lord of the Rings was actually one story. His publisher convinced him to have the story printed in three volumes since it was so long (over a thousand pages). He reluctantly agreed, but he always claimed it was one story even though it was in three physical books. It was his preference to consider the story as one long work. At least that is what it says in the introduction to my one volume edition. I wouldn’t go against what Tolkien said about his own work. The Lord of the Rings is not a real trilogy since it is not three separate tales but only one complete story. Tolkien never said that the book was a trilogy, and I think he was right.

@narnian78 

I didn't know that so thanks for the clarification. However my point still stands that it was published as 3 books so naturally makes sense to have been made into 3 movies.

@narnian78 the reason Lord of the Rings was not published and printed in one huge book was the shortage of paper in the early 50s (still post-war). It was also risky financially, as it was untested with the public. There are six books in the story (!) and each volume contains two.

It's definitely true that Tolkien intended The Lord of the Rings to be one book and he only split it into three volumes at his publisher's insistence. (Of course it's since been printed in one-volume editions, which was how I first read it.) However, I remember reading somewhere that Peter Jackson originally wanted to make only two films, covering the entire story within those, and apparently he took a fair bit of persuading before he agreed to make it into three films to correspond with the three volumes! I don't remember where I read that, but it certainly stood out to me, as most of what he did with those three films was very respectful to the books and I was quite surprised to learn he'd originally wanted to fit it all into only two movies.

Of course, what he did with The Hobbit was the complete opposite of respectful to the original book and I totally agree with @hermit that it was a blatant attempt to cash in, but let's just not go there... that was a crashing disappointment after the good job he did with the LOTR trilogy.

Back to Narnia and the purported eight films — having now read the NarniaWeb news article on the topic, I can only echo what @Varna has already said. Rich Gelfond himself said last month "And I think there are eight Narnia books..." (emphasis added), before this more recent comment of "I think there are like eight movies planned..."

It seems pretty obvious from what he has actually said and the way he phrased it both times. He's simply made a mistake on how many Narnia books there actually are, and seems aware that he has only a vague knowledge of the subject anyway. And of course, he's speaking as the CEO of IMAX, not as a Netflix employee, so it's extremely unlikely that he would have any kind of inside information from the production company. It sounds like he's simply getting excited at the thought of a major multi-film franchise for his own company to put on the (really) big screen and make money out of.

In other words, this whole breaking news story is about 99.99999% likely to be a big fat nothingburger.  

Posted by: @courtenay

In other words, this whole breaking news story is about 99.99999% likely to be a big fat nothingburger.

Absolutely spot-on.

In fact, NarniaWeb at first declined to even report on this story both times he's said it, since it was so super obvious what he meant, and it's clear from everything else he said what he actually knows about the production (i.e. very little)

However, rather annoyingly, as with the whole "Rock N Roll" thing, the rest of the internet news media decided to just uncritically run with the story, forcing our hands to comment on it with a news.post.

Such a shame that the more interesting news stories never seem to gain the same sort of traction online, what can you do.

@hermit: If they do get that far they'll probably find it very difficult to resist expanding on the lives of the protagonists in our world, especially the rift between The Friends of Narnia and Susan. 

That is precisely the reason I wouldn't want to see 8 books of Narnia. Do we really need someone burbling on about what happened to Susan, left alone to battle with normal life as an adult? C.S.Lewis left that sort of thing open, probably for a tad more realism in his story.  But that is the very sort of thing that might be only too likely if the series is already completed. 

Posted by: @waggawerewolf27

@hermit: If they do get that far they'll probably find it very difficult to resist expanding on the lives of the protagonists in our world, especially the rift between The Friends of Narnia and Susan. 

That is precisely the reason I wouldn't want to see 8 books of Narnia. Do we really need someone burbling on about what happened to Susan, left alone to battle with normal life as an adult? C.S.Lewis left that sort of thing open, probably for a tad more realism in his story.  But that is the very sort of thing that might be only too likely if the series is already completed. 

Well giving some sort of explanation for why Susan drifted away from the others isn't quite the same as showing Susan's life after the rail accident. I agree that Lewis meant to leave her ultimate fate open ended.

But even giving some reason for Susan's later behaviour might be problematic. There are probably almost as many explanations of 'The Problem of Susan' as there are Narnia fans. Whatever one they go for there are probably quite a few who will disagree violently with it.

Could it be possible that the CEO of IMAX theaters somehow just missed spoke? Maybe he knew there were 7 Narnia books, but somehow missed spoke, and it came out 8 films.

I think we'll have to wait and see after the first one is released in 2026 and how well it does. As I've said, I don't think there's any sense on speculating on what could this mean.

@jasmine_tarkheena I think it's likely that he just said a number, not remembering how many there actually are. (I know what it's like to say the wrong word by accident)

Posted by: @icarus

Posted by: @courtenay

In other words, this whole breaking news story is about 99.99999% likely to be a big fat nothingburger.

Absolutely spot-on.

 

However, rather annoyingly, as with the whole "Rock N Roll" thing, the rest of the internet news media decided to just uncritically run with the story, forcing our hands to comment on it with a news.post.

So, in fact the 8th movie will be the Rock N Roll story?? Ah, it's also about Susan, who at this stage is in her later 20s, and becomes a rock n roll singer? She's got the nylons and lipstick already!  

Posted by: @coracle

So, in fact the 8th movie will be the Rock N Roll story?? Ah, it's also about Susan, who at this stage is in her later 20s, and becomes a rock n roll singer? She's got the nylons and lipstick already!  

Oh, DON'T give them ideas...  

@courtenay Couldn't help myself, sorry!

@coracle, @courtenay

Oh no! I can't imagine an 8 Narnia film be all about Susan. Though if it is only seven films (and if Prince Caspian and The Last Battle both end up being lengthier films than the other five), I would actually be interested on what they'll do about Susan in The Last Battle. It might be interesting to see like maybe Polly or Lucy or Jill trying to convince Susan to join them in their conversations about their time in Narnia and she says, "What wonderful memories you have! You're still thinking about those games we've used to play when we were children!"

So I don't really think there will be a whole Narnia movie about Susan after The Last Battle, but I would be interested on what they might do with her in there.

Posted by: @jasmine_tarkheena

@coracle, @courtenay

Oh no! I can't imagine an 8 Narnia film be all about Susan.

We were both joking, if that wasn't clear enough.  

Also, I've already stated straight out that from what the IMAX CEO said on those two different occasions, it's bore obvious that he doesn't know how many Narnia books there actually are and he was just taking a guess (almost accurate) at eight, and he doesn't seriously know anything much about what Netflix is planning anyway. Therefore any speculating about what "the eighth Narnia film" might be is a worthless exercise, because it's quite clearly not going to happen.  

The IMAX CEO may not have even read the Narnia books, or maybe he forgot that there are only seven.  It may have been just a slip of the tongue. I would hope that he would take the time to read them and at least have a basic understanding of them.  I guess we can forgive people’s mistakes as long as they are corrected before any harm is done, and since it is early in the process nothing has been confirmed. I wouldn’t worry about something that hasn’t even been planned.