I think every movie should stand alone and tell it's own story to a certain extent. Certainly the books did. I'm not concerned with the length of time between sequels. Besides, something tells me we'll see this thing before 2018. The fact that they've made an announcement, I think, tells us something about that.

I'm thinking Walden will be involved on some level. I know they're not really in the business of feature films now, but expect to see there name somewhere in the credits. With their restructurization, I'm guessing they've decided just to give up on Narnia, and allow another movie to be made in return for a little slice of the profits.

That's what I'm thinking, but I could be totally wrong. Is there any other information.

I am certain that Walden will NOT be involved. The rift between them and the C.S. Lewis Estate was the reason they stopped making films in the first place. The Estate was waiting for all legal ties to expire before continuing on making films.

I can't find it now, but somebody mentioned yesterday that since Walden restructured, perhaps that's why we're getting another movie started much earlier than we anticipated. I know I was stunned to see the news.

As much as I've always been in favor of publication order over chronological order, I think, given the current circumstances, it would make sense to reboot and go the chronological route.

I don't know this for a fact, but I have a theory. Gresham has stated he wants to see all seven books made into movies during his lifetime. I suspect the reason they're continuing on rather than rebooting is to help ensure his dream.

Wow! This is completely unexpected! NarniaWeb is back in business!

So pleased to hear its Silver Chair as well! As much as I disliked Voyage of the Dawn Treader, it would of been far too depressing to have to go all the way back to the start and begin all over again with a reboot of the series at LWW or MN. The journey continues!

Hmmm.....I never finished "The Day After Tomorrow" because it was so horrible and I count it among the list in my head "The Worst Films Ever Made". So there's that.

BUT I think a lot of that had to do with the core story and script in general. As far as visually, Mark Gordon's films are decently impressive. And if Douglas Gresham is working on the script directly, there is hope this movie will turn out better than Voyage of the Dawn Treader. At this point so early in the process, I think that is all we can hope for.

BUT WOW! NEW FILM! I was convinced I wouldn't see a new Narnia film for at least another 10-15 years!

I don't know this for a fact, but I have a theory. Gresham has stated he wants to see all seven books made into movies during his lifetime. I suspect the reason they're continuing on rather than rebooting is to help ensure his dream.

Yes, I do recall him saying that, and I can certainly see that being the case; It makes perfect sense. I also see Icarus' point. It would be somewhat depressing to start all over again, but if we got better films out of it, it would be well worth it in my opinion.

At any rate, it certainly doesn't look like that's going to happen, so I'll just have to embrace SC. It will be exciting to see Puddleglum, if they don't mess him up.

I'll always be a,
NL101

I agree it would be depressing to start over again. Another thing to consider, do any studios or companies WANT to take on the Narnia franchise starting from scratch? Especially so soon after the most recent movies?

I believe we can still have this somewhat-fresh start without rebooting the entire series. We'll have one bad film (VDT). Oh well. It happened and we can move on. And hope the rest of the films will be better.

Well, it was time. Please let Gresham have more control this time and not repeat the mistakes that were made previously.

The more I've been thinking about this, the more I find myself slightly disappointed that they aren't going to reboot with MN.

I completely understand this sentiment, and this would be my preference as well. But there are some positives of doing The Silver Chair next, the biggest being that it doesn't require a large budget to be good. The Magician's Nephew would be much more difficult to pull off on a tighter budget.

And I think at some point when LWW becomes outdated they will reboot the series, so we may yet see a faithful adaption of Dawn Treader.

Personally, I would like to see all ties broken between the previous series, and have The Silver Chair as a strong stand alone film. I wouldn't be opposed to a completely different artistic style.

I've wanted "The Silver Chair" to come next since early 2011, so I was really disappointed with the "Magician's Nephew" news that March.

I see SC as love for the franchise, and MN as love for money. Maybe I'm wrong. But SC without Walden Media makes me really happy!

I've seen quite a bit of Mark Gordon's work, both as producer and as executive producer. Some people may not like "The Day After Tomorrow," but I did. It and "Deep Impact" are my favorite end-of-the-world disaster films.

"The Patriot" was okay, but it was never a work of art like "The Last of the Mohicans." I liked "The Source Code," but it was macabre.

Of all the Gordon films I've seen, "The Painted Veil" was the best. It is a true work of art, far superior to the Somerset Maugham short story it was based on. "Warm Springs" was pretty good too. Cynthia Nixon played an excellent Eleanor Roosevelt. Too bad Gordon was just an exec producer on these two films!

With all that said, is his company right for Narnia? It's too soon to tell. But I like his enthusiasm and love for the books. That's important.

You know what would be cool? Ben Barnes playing Caspian in old man makeup.

Hey if Jared Leto can pull it off...

Wow, big news. At this point, I'm not really as excited as I was for VDT, but of course, I'm not uninterested. I am happy TSC stands a chance, but, goodness, it sits alongside HHB on the shelf of my favourite chronicles, so I can't say that I'm not concerned! In my opinion (and I'm being pessimistic here), it seems like TSC can suffer probably the worst damage of the chronicles, except for TLB. It could be good, but I do not have my hopes up. That said, I am looking forward to news on the film. I am glad that things will start picking up around narniaweb.

I think Will Poulter could easily reprise his role as Eustace. Even though he'd likely be 22 by the time the film goes into production he could probably pass as a 16 year old relatively well. That would make Eustace several years older than he was in the books, but I think it would be a good change. As much as I love the Narnia books, kids fighting in battles and going on epic adventures doesn't translate all that well to the big screen. Making him older would make The Silver Chair MUCH more believable. Pete was older in the first film than he was in the book, and Caspian was MUCH older in the movie than he was in the book. And both of those changes were for the better in my opinion. There's also really no reason why Eustace couldn't be in his early 20s in The Last Battle, too. Just make Tirian 30 or so and the dynamic will work just fine.

I also think that you guys who think they're going to try to distance themselves completely from the previous films as much as possible are mistaken. They may try to make this film a back-to-the-basics soft reboot that hearkens back to LWW as much as possible and largely ignores VODT, but they won't totally start from scratch. Don't underestimate the power of having an established franchise. The last two films didn't exactly set the box office on fire, but only because they had such large budgets. $400+ million is nothing to shake a stick at. Those two films still earned the franchise a lot of name recognition. With a $150 million budget VODT should have been reasonably profitable with those numbers. I think it's reasonable to believe that the next Narnia film can expect a box office haul at least somewhere in the $400 million range due to the performance and name recognition of it's predecessors, so I don't think they'll abandon that. Instead, I think we'll just see the film get made with a lower budget. Maybe $100 million or so, which would still make for great film.

Agreed! I'm open to some changes in order to make them flow better in film format, I honestly think it works much better with the characters bumped up in age. The Narnian air makes them feel older and more warrior-like anyway, so why not express that visually with older actors? Personally, I don't want to see a literal film version of Eustace that is nine years old, which I believe is his age in The Silver Chair. If I were in charge of these films, I would be terrified and have a lot of trouble making decisions. Sometimes you have to choose between sticking 100% to the source material, or doing something that works better on film. If you keep it 100% faithful and it comes off weird/cheesy, you fail, if you change something and p**s off the fans, you fail. That's not an easy position to be in.

I've never stopped checking NarniaWeb for updates, but it definitely wasn't the same without a movie to look forward to.

Extremely happy to see Narnia movie. I know many of you disliked VDT, but outside of this website, I know many people who immensely enjoyed that movie, and it is those fans also that pushed VDT to a stellar $415 million worldwide gross - and a profit.

It great to see a producer wth a passion for the books. And it doesn't hurt that Narnia is still commercially viable. Let's face it, Hollywood is looking for a franchise hit, and when they are looking at pumping life into less lucrative franchises like Percy Jackson, it was only a matter of time before they began revisiting Narnia again.

My only concern is the budget - hoping to see something north of $100 million.

this is really big news, and it gave me a lot of mixed feelings, I'm half agony, half hope as Captain Wentoworth so well put it. I've been hoping and hoping that a new movie would be made, but with the last two messed up I'm almost afraid that this one will be ruined too. I'm so glad that it will be Silver Chair, of all the Chronicles The Magician's Nephew is the one I enjoy the least, so I wasn't really looking forward to it being made. I'm excited for a new movie, but I don't know what to expect, hoping for the best, and of course, I'm glad that now life will be brought back the forums!!!!

I think Will Poulter could easily reprise his role as Eustace. Even though he'd likely be 22 by the time the film goes into production he could probably pass as a 16 year old relatively well. That would make Eustace several years older than he was in the books, but I think it would be a good change. As much as I love the Narnia books, kids fighting in battles and going on epic adventures doesn't translate all that well to the big screen. Making him older would make The Silver Chair MUCH more believable.

Agreed! I'm open to some changes in order to make them flow better in film format, I honestly think it works much better with the characters bumped up in age. The Narnian air makes them feel older and more warrior-like anyway, so why not express that visually with older actors? Personally, I don't want to see a literal film version of Eustace that is nine years old, which I believe is his age in The Silver Chair.

This is overlapping a lot with the thread in the Cast & Character Discussion section, but I have to say I disagree. Lewis didn't seem to think it was a problem having pre-teen children fighting in battles and going on epic adventures. Does that mean they can't be made into films without altering them so much they're not really the same stories any more? As I said in the other thread, all the detail about Experiment House in the book of Silver Chair convinces me that Eustace and Jill are about 12, not 9. But make Eustace 16 (and tall!), and all that stuff about being bullied by older children goes out of the window. The beginning of the film of Dawn Treader wasn't word-for-word what was in the book, but the mood was pretty much the same. But it would need a more radical rewrite of the opening of Silver Chair to get Eustace and Jill into Narnia. A lot of people on this forum appear to hate the film of VDT because it wasn't a faithful-enough adaptation of the book. Personally I thought that the film of Prince Caspian took more liberties with the source material than Dawn Treader; it felt like it was trying so hard to be a "teen" movie. But I think of the Narnia books as children's stories that I can still enjoy as an adult, and I suppose that's what I'd like to see in Narnia films: well-made, avoiding being patronising and silly, but still primarily for children.