In my opinion, some audiences have grown sick of the Pevensies, and are in need or seeing some new Narnian characters; in which case SC would be perfect. I think Will Poulter did a fantastic job, and will be extremely disappointed if he is replaced. I would not mind them making him older than he is in the book.

I would be fine with having SC released earlier than the holidays, but the filmmakers have made it pretty clear that it's their way (November/December; holiday season) or the highway. My vote is still that we wont see SC in theaters until at least November 2013.

In my opinion, some audiences have grown sick of the Pevensies

Now, I mostly enjoyed PC, and I absolutely loved VDT , but I'll be the first to admit that they were flawed, and not as good as they could have been. One factor in this, is that the directors spend too much time and effort worrying about what "some audiences" want, rather than focusing on making a truly good quality film. I think if they started out saying "Okay, how do we turn this story into an excellent film?" rather than "How do we pander to this, that or the other demographic (teens, kiddies, uber-fans)?" PC would have had stronger legs, and VDT would have been more successful from the get go. The fact of the matter is, that some people are ready to move on from the Pevensies, where as some of them would miss them, and some people don't care. If they came out with a really good movie (and . . . I don't know . . . let people know it's in theatres, ), those other considerations will come out in the wash. SC and HHB are both exciting if you give them a chance.

Do you think people would see the Silver Chair even if the Pevensies are not in it? Many comments from people on Youtube say that they hate Eustace and wouldn't want to see a movie about him.

Actually to be honest I was thinking a few months ago about how they should introduce Jill and I think that she could be picked at by some people at possibly a bus stop or something and is shoved, her books fall and Lucy is there in her uniform (maybe she goes to a boarding school in Cambridge, no?) she helps Jill with her books and gives her a word of encourgement. Edmund calls for her and there's a brief shot of all the Pevensies except Peter is not in uniform because he's probably going to college and saying his goodbyes to his siblings. Susan can look different in her uniform when we last saw her in it from PC, like she can wear her hair differently, more makeup and her scool jacket off (shes in her white shirt), and flirting with a young man possibly eight feet away from her siblings to show how she is now becoming distant from them. It'll last possibly 20-25 seconds tops.

What do you guys think?

Anhun said:

One factor in this, is that the directors spend too much time and effort worrying about what "some audiences" want, rather than focusing on making a truly good quality film.

I couldn't agree more. And I hope the fact that the Pevensies do/do not appear in any specific movie wouldn't make or break the film...

I'm in the camp that is tired of the Pevensies and the White Witch.
I was surprised she even got credited in the movie ads. It would be changing the SC movie if they even added them in as cameos.

I agree that focusing on what the appeal is of each book would help the adaptations be more warmly received. There is just so much more they could do to make the rest of the series a success if they really tried.

I'm writing Walden and Fox to voice my expectations for SC (even if you don't think it would help, it wouldn't hurt to voice your opinions, if you're so inclined....).

Walden Media
1888 Century Park East, 14th Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90067

Fox 2000
10201 West Pico Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90035

I agree that focusing on what the appeal is of each book would help the adaptations be more warmly received.

I'm not sure what you mean by "focusing on the appeal." Sounds like you are talking about pandering to the fans of the book. That would only work if we were talking about a popular book, which SC is not. It's actually fairly obscure. Now, you can make a really good and popular movie out of obscure source material, but not by pandering to the fans.

What they should do is focus on the story, the characters, and the themes, and develop them into a well-written (PLEASE ), cleverly edited and beautifully visualized movie. The movie needs to be able to stand on its own two feet, separate from the book and the other movies. It'll be a few months at least before we hear if we're getting a fourth Narnia movie. They had better get this one right, or we won't get a 5th. Whether it comes out around Christmas 2012 or 2013, it'll be facing much stiffer competition than VDT. If SC isn't an amazing movie, everyone is going to go see The Hobbit a second time, rather than seeing SC at all.

I agree that focusing on what the appeal is of each book would help the adaptations be more warmly received.

I'm not sure what you mean by "focusing on the appeal." Sounds like you are talking about pandering to the fans of the book. That would only work if we were talking about a popular book, which SC is not. It's actually fairly obscure. Now, you can make a really good and popular movie out of obscure source material, but not by pandering to the fans.

What they should do is focus on the story, the characters, and the themes, and develop them into a well-written (PLEASE ), cleverly edited and beautifully visualized movie. The movie needs to be able to stand on its own two feet, separate from the book and the other movies. It'll be a few months at least before we hear if we're getting a fourth Narnia movie. They had better get this one right, or we won't get a 5th. Whether it comes out around Christmas 2012 or 2013, it'll be facing much stiffer competition than VDT. If SC isn't an amazing movie, everyone is going to go see The Hobbit a second time, rather than seeing SC at all.

But pandering to the fans is doing all of what you list in your second paragraph! And I do think that the strength of each Narnia Chronicles is that it is so different from the last. The Prince Caspian movie seemed to have gotten that idea down. The VDT trategy was "Return to Narnia. Return to Hope. Return to the Moneymaking of LWW." It didn't work because they tried WAY too hard to make it a sunny movie, like they "remembered" LWW being.

I'm not sure what you mean by "focusing on the appeal." Sounds like you are talking about pandering to the fans of the book. That would only work if we were talking about a popular book, which SC is not. It's actually fairly obscure. Now, you can make a really good and popular movie out of obscure source material, but not by pandering to the fans.

When I said appealing to the fans, it’s actually what you expressed much better in your post, Anhun.
I want the same. A quality script of a quality story. Not superficial appeal, but a script that’s based on the majority of what most people like from the book-even if it isn't considered one of the popular books....what makes SC the book attractive to those people who consider it one of their favourite books?..... (though I might be wrong, I think that’s pretty much easy to see the likable aspects of each book). And the appeal to the book fans should translate into a story that non-book fans and persons new to this story would be interested in watching.

For example, a lot of people (book fans) thought the Eustace story arc was important to address in VDT and were disappointed when it wasn’t….so for SC I would guess the important story points to be addressed are: quest to find the lost prince, character-building of the two kids involved in the quest, learning who, what, when to trust, following instructions (signs…and not straying from them). So keeping the core and not adding anything to the story that isn’t there to begin with. I hope I made some sense.

I am pretty hopeful that SC will get greenlit at this point. My true worries are for the rest of the Chronicles. I am dying to see HHB!

I wonder if they already have a large amount of the SC script done. It seems VDT is setting up SC. Therefore I think that they at least have a good idea about what direction the want to go in for the next movie.

I agree Valiant. I would think they already have done some work on SC. I agree also that the concern is for an 'outlier' story like HHB. The Pevensies appear very briefly, but it is essentially going to be getting audiences to trust that they don't need regular (human) characters to take them on a wonderful journey to Narnia.

I loved what Ben barnes had to say about the producers ideas for SC that was discussed at the premieres after party.

Hi DamselJillPole can you remember where this is?

Is it safe to say that we all agree that Silver Chair has the best chance of being greenlit after it's theatrical release in Japan, and it's DVD release in other parts of the world?

I'm not sure it's safe to say anything. This is the first time Fox has been involved in a Narnia project. Given that they haven't made up their minds yet, even though Narnia has fallen off the grid domestically, I think we can gamble that, at the very least, they're waiting for the international numbers to come in. This would mean that we'll get an answer in early March at the soonest, because that's when VDT will have been released in all territories.

If we're using Disney as an indicator, then they will probably wait to see the DVD sales. Disney pulled out after they saw PC's feeble showing on the DVD market, so maybe Fox will wait to see if VDT doesn't do better.

It looks like VDT's box office will likley be less than PC's. Every film has made less than the one before.

Walden might stubbornly keep pushing for another film. We might see a low-budget fourth Narnia movie. Maybe. Most likley "The Magician's Nephew," I think. A "LWW prequel" would be easier to market.

Seems like Narnia is destined to become an 'Air Bud' kind of series. Years from now, people will say "What? They made HOW many Narnia movies? Seriously?"

Seems like Narnia is destined to become an 'Air Bud' kind of series. Years from now, people will say "What? They made HOW many Narnia movies? Seriously?"

That's slightly, um, dramatic. I don't think we've reached that level of mediocrity just yet.

Even if SC is greenlit, it must do substantially better than VDT domestically. At this stage, I could see Fox continuing on with SC and maybe change their strategy for marketing and further adjust the budget but if the money isn't there again, I think we can say goodbye to Fox as distributor and to the franchise.

Voyage Of The Dawn Treader will probably make less than Prince Caspian, but only 15-20 million $ at the most. After Prince Caspian's relatively bad gross they probably sat together and thought 420 million $ is a solid number how much do we need to decrease the budget to make a decent profit with 420 million $. So they get to 140-150 million $. I don't think the budget will be reduced again, because they wil get very close to PC's gross.
The question now is will Japan follow the boxoffice trend of the USA (decline again) or that of Russia (nice increase from PC and even LWW).
Narnia is still doing quite well this year, better than other big budget movies who were destined to spawn a franchise or sequel, such as Prince Of Persia, Last Airbender and Robin Hood.
There is no reason why they shouldn't continue the series.

It looks like VDT's box office will likley be less than PC's. Every film has made less than the one before.

Walden might stubbornly keep pushing for another film. We might see a low-budget fourth Narnia movie. Maybe. Most likley "The Magician's Nephew," I think. A "LWW prequel" would be easier to market.

Seems like Narnia is destined to become an 'Air Bud' kind of series. Years from now, people will say "What? They made HOW many Narnia movies? Seriously?"

Now that's depressing...

I wouldn't say the series is beyond saving, though, because there's a key difference between Narnia and Air Bud. Air Bud was a decent stand-alone movie, which studios milked dry with mediocre stories. Narnia, on the other hand, had seven phenomenal stories long before the movies were green-lit.

Unfortunately, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (movie) seemed like a thrown together, last-ditch attempt to gain a few more dollars, but we all know that The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (book) is much more than than that.

If the film-makers shape up, we could have an amazing movie on our hands because they have everything they need to make it so. I'm not sure if the film-makers will realize their mistakes or not, but they do read reviews so...

Who knows?