Dear Filmmakers,

C.S. Lewis was an extremely smart and talented man. These stories are his children, his conception. He grew them, nurtured them, disciplined them and loved them. You are now coming back to try and translate them to the big screen. Don't flatter yourselves that you can improve the stories with a flick of your wrist. Respect the author and assume he knew best before ditching something, or utterly rewriting it. Yes, in a different medium you have to make some changes. But please, do them respectfully.

Sincerely,
A Fan

Dear Any Film Makers for Narnia in the Future,

Narnia is as dear to our hearts as a series like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings is to other people. When these two series got adapted to the big screen, they were well received, because the film makers took risks and kept not only the content, but the themes of the books close to the material while making changes that work.

Narnia missed this criteria, especially as the series went on with Walden Media at hand. If you ever decide to make Narnia into films again, please, don't adapt the books unless you really truly love them. Take risks, but don't change the whole meaning of the books. Take this advice, and you will see many happy Narnia fans.

-Louloudi the Centaur

Ah, Lou, good point! Loving the series is an absolute MUST for any future filmmakers. If you're just going about it for the moolah... Forget it. We can tell, future filmmakers. If you don't love it, we know. If you do love it, we know, and so does the rest of the world. You don't have to know the original source material to just sense the care that went into a film.

Dear Producers, Directors, Script Writers, et al,

It's all about the characters. Read about them, live with them, become their best friends. We don't love these books because they have the most amazing plots ever, but because of the characters that shape the plots. We love Lucy's faith, Eustace's priggishness, Shasta's tenacity, Digory's hope, Reepicheep's nobility, Caspian's initial naïvety, Jill's bossiness, Puddleglum's gloominess. But most of all, we love Aslan. If you can get him right, everything else will be a walk in the park. Read LWW. Read MN. Read HBB. Read all of them, in fact. He's not a tame lion, but he's Good.

--Badger of Narnia

Dear Filmmakers,

The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis, are a fantastic series. They tell the stories themselves. They've lit our imaginations and have opened new worlds to us and have taught us to learn more of our own world. Merely putting some things together and not being faithful to the books that we have grown to love is disappointing to your fans--especially when we are led on to believe that what is being adapted is "based on the book by C.S. Lewis."

Frankly, it is inexpressibly disappointing to hear, "This is based on the book that C.S. Lewis didn't write." If this is the case, please don't advertise it as the book C.S. Lewis did write, because that's misleading.

Please get someone who utmostly, understands the spiritual elements of the books, who loves the books, who respects C.S. Lewis. Someone who is not opposed to the spiritual concepts in the books and will not distort them into a sloppy message in order to please everyone. Please don't make it that "Narnia" is associated with saccharine, shallow, and poor quality films which will forever represent the books in the minds of those who do not know much about Narnia. Regardless of how one wants to put it or change it, C.S. Lewis wrote Aslan to be as Christ was in our world and as Christ is today. Even if you disagree with Christ or whatnot, please don't change it. That's how C.S. Lewis wrote it. That's how it should be executed.

Aslan is what holds all the Narnia books together. He is the center of the story. When you take him out, you end up with something that C.S. Lewis would have probably not approved of. The Narnia books are so intricately put together -- if you mess up one concept, chances are that the movie will have a hole--it will be like a stitch pulled out of something, making the seams unsteady. (as a semi-purist, I'm not talking about a word-for-word adaptation or anything. I'm talking for an idea-for-idea concept that involves putting what the books had.)

The tips I would give would be:

Make them have the same moral as the books.
Minor plot changes are fine, just nothing too major (even though VDT was a good movie, it wasn't great as a adaptation...)
Use a high enough of a budget to get the movie made (and made good), but don't use so much extra money that it means the next movie will have a really small budget.
Find good actors/actresses.
Use directors who can easily stay true to the books.

I think that's it, if I think of any more, I will add them into another post.

Love for the books and stories!
I feel like Peter Jackson had a respect and love for the story of The Lord of the Rings.
I think the problem with the Narnia series has been the fact that everyone wanted to cash in on The Lord of the Rings success and they thought "Hey lets do Narnia"
That is not a reason to bring these beloved stories to the big screen!
It should be made because those involved love this story and want to share it with those who maybe have never heard the story, or for those like us who would love to see the stories we love seen on screen.
So my advice would be to only make these movies, if you love the stories, if you understand them, and want to share these stories because you love them!

Dear Michael Apted-
Move over and let NarniaWebbers make VDT.

Really, I think the best advice for anyone making any type of adaptation would be to get a director that genuinely cares about the story. It should be a director that can understand what is important in the book and what makes it so special. A director definitely should be able to understand the theme. If they can get the theme right, the adaptation will be on the right track already.
It's also helpful if the director understands the important details and the meaning behind them. I don't think Adamson really understood the "every year you grow, you will find me bigger" line from PC, or maybe he wanted to make it less "in your face Christian", but he should have been able to understand the significance behind even smaller details. This is especially important for the Narnia series because there is SO much depth to it and I'm still learning more about it. All in all, the director should stick to the spirit of the book.

I agree with everyone in that the films absolutely need to be directed by a lover of the series. However, I'd like to add that I don't think this should be the only prerequisite. A good director will need to find a way to stay true to the books, while at the same time make it so it will also appeal to those who haven't read the books (I feel sorry for such people ). This will obviously be important for the film's success.

Also, there needs to be a bigger/better marketing push next time. I'd say they did a good job with LWW, a fair job with PC, and a pretty mediocre job marketing VDT. But a high-quality movie comes first of course. You can't run a good marketing campaign for a bad movie... oh wait, yes you can.

Dear Film Makers,

Please know that the hard-core fans of Narnia are not your enemies, and you don't have to keep trying to drive us insane. We promise that if you make a movie that even remotely resembles the actual book (like PC), we will drag our friends to the theater to see it at least once. Probably more like three or four times. In 3D.

We will grind our teeth at the pointless things like Suspian scenes, but we will defend the movie to the death when someone else criticizes it. We will sigh with happiness when Lucy or Gael does something sweet, we will cry when Eustace is un-dragoned and we will stand up and cheer when Peter leads the charge atop his unicorn. (and yes, we will attend all the midnight premiers in costume)

We will pre-order the collectors editions of the DVDs and buy all the jewelry and costumes we can find on Amazon. We will spend our time stalking the movie stars, drawing scenes from the movies and biting our nails until the next one is announced. We will quote obscure lines to friends, and we will have them so versed in Narnian lore that they will be able to give us the next line.

We will post on our Facebook, our Twitter and our Pinterest feeds about moments in the movies that we love. We will be a souce of endless free advertizing, because we will always be inviting people to come over and watch the movies with us. We will drive our moms crazy because they believe we have our heads stuck in a fantasy world... But we know the truth.

If you will give us a movie that keeps with the theme of the book and it's vision, even when you change some points, we will stick by you. And that is a promise.

Sincerely, Dernhelm

Regardless of the work you are adapting, love and understand the source material. Then change it if you must, but don't twist it to suit what's popular.
Keep the canon in mind and in heart.

Dear future filmmakers.

Signed - Jackalope Joe.

The filmmakers know far and away more than I do or ever will about making movies. But my one piece of advice is that if you go to make a movie and you're not madly in love with the source material, the final product will reflect that. Sure changes are fine here and there, but the heart of the story and the characters must remain intact.

Get a director who loves the books, who understands what Lewis wanted to do with them, and who wants to do the same with the movies.

Then allow him to do so, and give him a large enough budget to be able to go through with it.