Disney will not take up its option on the next film in the Chronicles of Narnia series, the Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
Both 2005's The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and this year's followup Prince Caspian were produced by a partnership between Disney and Walden Media, the Christian education-focused company which owns the film rights to the books. The first movie took an impressive $740m (£500m) across the globe on a budget of $180m (£122m), but its sequel's take was way down on that – $420m (£285m) from a $200m (£135m) budget, prompting Disney to pull out.
So $ 220 million is a let down? Well, I imagine it's trending downward, with five more movies at least to produce (based on less familiar titles). However, that doesn't excuse the number of terrible movies Disney DOES invest in (i.e. Mighty Ducks, the two later Lion King movies). I'm waiting for the Culture War angle on this, as to whether Disney wanted to dissociate itself from a movie unavoidably linked with traditional Christian ideas and symbols.
-Steve K.
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2 comments:
Not sure what the budget for these films are, but you would think there would be a market for a straight to DVD release...
Personally, I enjoyed Prince Caspian a lot more than the first ... so, this news was especially saddening. The Mickey Mouse company seems to get more and more confused with each passing year
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