Well, if they want to, go for it!

This is a big topic to open. But yes, I agree with this. There is so much more possibilities with this series. Now they just need to figure out what to do right.

My partially recycled two cents below (hope they make sense)....

1) A film was a box office success
VDT was neither a box office or a critical success. It might be more successful than PC monetarily, but the financial goals were lowered with the reduced budget, so it was a meetable target of just making its budget back....though definitely it was expected to do way better than it did. Comparing how VDT did to PC might influence decisionmaking on continuing. There were some beautiful scenes and neat special and visual effects in VDT but they weren't tied together by the writing.

Tangled is not sourced from a favorite series of books which makes it logical that people wouldn't want to see a sequel of it. It was your usual Disney princess happy-ending story (another variant of it). The appeal with that film is that the script worked, the main characters were lovable (as a result of the script) and the animation made the most of the currently overpopular 3D effect. Plus it was Disney...continously branded as a quality family moviemaker, with a history of successes over duds.

Would think Fox/Walden are smart enough to see the value of the Narnia series as a whole (if they could only get things right!). Would think they would learn from VDT in some way, though if they make the next film and it's also a dud, they really should close up shop.

2) They think audiences would like to see “more of it.”

These movies are not supposed to necessarily be thought of as sequels, possibly 'sequels' in that they're all supposed to be linked by the Narnia brand, genre/type of movie, and the fact that some characters appear again in later books.

It would be nice if they could (as others have said) treat each one as its own movie. The movies are already associated by the brand, which unfortunately took more of a nosedive with VDT.

Audiences are so varied and fickle. What is focus testing telling Walden/Fox about audiences for these movies? Are they appealing to people who primarily only want to see familiar characters with no clue about the rest of the books (gotta see the White Witch and the Pevensies in each movie even if they aren't supposed to be there) and those big special 3D effects or people who primarily love the books and want to see them properly translated to screen? The only movie that met that balance well was LWW. PC and VDT didn't for me.

3) There is a large “built-in” audience that will go see the sequel no matter what.

It's comparing apples to oranges to compare Tangled to The Chronicles....Tangled isn't really made to be sequeled to begin with (in my personal opinion) and seems more like a standalone piece having been based on Rapunzel....since when has Disney ever sequeled one of its previous princess tales (except in maybe direct-to-DVD releases)? (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs-the sequel) I guess there would be a built-in audience for a sequel to Tangled, but why would they need to make one?

There is of course a "built-in" audience for The Chronicles. People have gone to see VDT over again (even if it wasn't the best) because they love the whole series and want to support it. They will most likely go to the next one if they film it, but the rest of the series can't survive with just them alone.

This may sound really silly but part of me wants the remainder of The Chronicles to still be made even if the big screen is no longer an option.
I would hope if they couldn't make feature films then TV would be the second-best option (possibly going in financially with the Beeb/public television)?

Tangled is not sourced from a favorite series of books which makes it logical that people wouldn't want to see a sequel of it. It was your usual Disney princess happy-ending story (another variant of it). The appeal with that film is that the script worked, the main characters were lovable (as a result of the script) and the animation made the most of the currently overpopular 3D effect. Plus it was Disney...continously branded as a quality family moviemaker, with a history of successes over duds.

Much as I agree with some of your comments, including the good 3D effects in Tangled, I have to take issue with the bolded part. The original Rapunzel was one of the tales told by the Brothers Grimm and later was included in Andrew Lang's Red fairy book. You can read summaries of the original story in both of the links I gave you, where you can see for yourself how Disney has bowdlerised Rapunzel in Tangled. For example, do you notice the quite intentional SC rip-off in Tangled?

Apparently it is more acceptable to take whatever liberties one likes with an old tale with several versions, than it is to make changes in VDT. I also found myself a bit irritated with the stylized over-acting which seems to typify animated movies such as Tangled, even though I loved Beauty and the Beast.

When shopping today I noticed the 'princess' motifs and artistry on a lot of Crayola products as well as boxes of tissues, cheap towels and other things. Perhaps Tangled or future 'princess' stories don't need an established fan base, apart from commonly used prettified girly merchandise, since its heroine can blend in seamlessly with these other Disney beauties.

Here are the full results of the Tangled survey, as well as the VDT one. I agree that neither Tangled nor VDT would be followed by direct sequels in any case. And since the film industry looks for fresh stories to film that in itself remains a strong argument for Walden continuing with filming the Narnia stories.

They sure should. And hopefully they will. Narnia is their most productive franchise. People want more Narnia movies. So it would only benefit them to do so.

Although if they do make more of the films, the original characters won't be in it anymore ,(the pevensies, White witch etc) that might stop some viewers coming to see the movies.

Some people could be seeing the movies because of the cast, I for one Love Skandar Keynes who plays Edmund. But that wouldnt make me lose interest in the movies when he leaves. It could be different for others though. Thats just my opinion.

Agreed!
I love the cast and I'm glad that the Narnia audiences liked Will Poulter so much as Eustace, because to be honest, he is what is going to make audiences remember VDT and therefore, he is what will link VDT to SC (which I hope will come next xx)

I think that all the films should be made because although they might not make the most money ever, they will still always make money. Narnia is kind of like a smaller version of the Harry Potter craze...no matter what the film is like, there will always be that dedicated group of fans who will go and watch the film and buy merchandise etc...

But if they do make the remaining books into films then they should stick to the original story line a bit more because althought they have made good films so far, we have found that the closer the film follows the book, the better it is recieved.

If they could make all the films, they should!

My biggest concern about making MN before SC is that Will Poulter may look too old to credibly and successfully play Eustace that later on. Unless they set SC when Eustace and Jill are in senior high school, rather than upper elementary or middle school like they seem to be in the SC book. Which could work- like it did with an older Caspian. But it may not.

Now this is where I differ most from glumPuddle. Yes, there is NarniaWeb, where some members didn't like VDT much, were less than enthralled with PC, and whose interest in Narnia is in the possibility of writing fan fiction rather than the stories themselves, or the themes that can be discussed in the books.

At the end of the day, the built-in Narnia fanbase is just a drop in the bucket. Unlike HP, where the fanbase alone can support the movies.

The fact that PC and VDT did poorly is proof that the fanbase alone is not big enough to support huge-budget Narnia films.

Yes, HP is so popular that the DH1 survey was a massive 79% yes vote. As if we wouldn't want to see the second part of HPDH, especially as we know the second part is made already and will be out next July.

But then what? C.S.Lewis is the only other credible fantasy series that caters for all ages, apart from Disney's trawling through the Red fairy book. As my TV salesman mate pointed out, Narnia was around long before Harry Potter, it pre-dated Internet and fan-clubs, and its influence on the Harry Potter series, and JKR, herself is profound. Even Phillip Pullman if being specifically anti-Narnia could be counted as being influenced by C.S.Lewis.

The sorts of people who did go to VDT weren't necessarily parents with young children, though they were there. They were people in their 30's and 40's, or even older. They weren't necessarily the sorts of people who would join fan sites like this one, and they are the ones who ensured that VDT was more successful than some have given it credit for.

Much as I agree with some of your comments, including the good 3D effects in Tangled, I have to take issue with the bolded part. The original Rapunzel was one of the tales told by the Brothers Grimm and later was included in Andrew Lang's Red fairy book. You can read summaries of the original story in both of the links I gave you, where you can see for yourself how Disney has bowdlerised Rapunzel in Tangled. For example, do you notice the quite intentional SC rip-off in Tangled?

Thanks Wagga for those links! Yeah I can see the rip-off! I love librarians who love fairy tales. You always bring something interesting to the discussions. A lot of fantasy stuff in movies is derivative though...a lot of it gets recycled in different forms, pretending to be something shiny and new, sort of like the Green Lady.

Edited to add: But Disney still did do a good script from the fairytale because it made narrative sense.

what made tangled like SC? I havn't seen it yet and i'll probably wait 'till its out on DVD but when I read this my curiosity got the better of me!
Lots of fantasie films borrow ideas of one another and i've seen so many films with Narniaesque features in them...Why should they succeed while their inspiration fails? The Narnia series MUST live on!!!!! Walden should notice that it has a great franchise here, and it has already done better than many of their other failed franchises (Eragon etc...). It would be a crime not to make another Narnia film, as the books, The characters and indeed the franchise, are loved by so many people!

Apparently it is more acceptable to take whatever liberties one likes with an old tale with several versions, than it is to make changes in VDT.

The difference is that it would be absurd to object to changes to Rapunzel. It's a centuries old tale derived from oral tradition which differed from teller to teller. There is no one true "correct" version that all others versions are measured by, not even that of the Brothers Grimm who altered the stories they recorded as they saw fit. One might as well complain about BBC's Merlin changing the Arthurian mythology that has been similarly changed by every single author, poet, and bard for the last 1400 years.

Well I'll accept that, but only to a point. But have you noticed that all the versions, except the latest Tangled version, centre around

Quite different from Disney's sanitised 'Tangled'

Furthermore, I wouldn't be so comfortable with bowdlerising old tales from yore if I were you. Grimm's fairy tales are still in print as far as I know, and so is Andrew Lang's Red Fairy Book. And consider this: We Down Under have been entertained by tales of the Aboriginal Dreamtime for decades. These tales explain quite a bit about Australia before 1788. Should anyone fool around with these tales dating back millenia, the way Disney has with Rapunzel, then there would be all sorts of legal action taken, right up to the High Court.

This is why Douglas Gresham is working with Walden, to ensure the series is kept reasonable. Despite complaints here, I've no doubt there would be even worse problems if he wasn't around. I hope the series continues, myself.