The Chronicles of Narnia

I did a search and I didn't see anything on this. Is is forbidden to talk about this on the Harry Potter forum or something? lol Well this topic is to discuss the 7 book (Soon to be movie) series of The Chronicles of Narnia. I just saw the trailer for 'Prince Caspian' and came here to see what others thought about it. Hopefully it's better than 'The Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe' which I thought was a good movie but was missing in the....magic department.

Which book are you most excited to see made into the film. I think out of the 7 Voyage and Last Battle would be the most visually stunning if done right.

I really enjoyed The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I'm a huge C.S. Lewis fan in general and I'm looking forward to the next one.

I think this new movie looks amazing! I just youtubed it not too long ago. :D

I read the whole series and really liked it. Haven't seen the movie yet though...

In case anyone wants to see it the Prince Caspian trailer is here.

http://www.narniaweb.com/news.asp?id=1355&dl=14478175


Michael

I thought that the first movie was alright, not brilliant, and I'm looking forward to seeing Caspian.

EDIT- The trailer looks pretty cool.

I really loved the first movie. Saw it in theaters 15 times. Just one of those films where I knew what was coming, and it exceeded my expectations.

As far as Prince Caspian, it really looks like it is going to be awesome. One of the best movies coming out next year. Thats saying something too, seeing as how we have Harry Potter and Indiana Jones coming out as well.

i LOVED the Chronicles of Narnia when I was a kid, and still do. I saw The Lion the Witch & The Wardrobe in the cinemas (3 times) and have it on DVD. I love the music and i think the movie is grea!!

I'm looking forward to Prince Caspian - I saw the trailer the other day, and it gave me tingles! very excited!

im really looking forward ot see caspian ,i really liked the narnia books and im happy to see the movies,im not so picky with them as i am with the potter ones,and it really gives me something to look forward besides half blood.

I remember seeing the BBC version of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wadrobe in 5th grade (That's when I first read the book aswell...had NO idea at the time there were more heh) I thought it was AMAZING...but looking back eh not so great lol.

My teacher did make us Turkish Delight though :drool:

The thing about the recent Lion, Witch, and Wadrobe is that in certain scenes it was obvious they were on greenscreen...Narnia wasn't as awe inspiring as it could've been but I still think it was a good effort. Last year I finally read the entire series (In publication order which is awesome) and I'm really interested to see how they're going to adapt them.

My only fear is that after Prince Caspian all the main kids aren't really important anymore (Except for Lucky really) and really become supporting characters. Do you think the general audience will still see the one's that are a completely different storyline?

I remember seeing the BBC version of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wadrobe in 5th grade (That's when I first read the book aswell...had NO idea at the time there were more heh) I thought it was AMAZING...but looking back eh not so great lol.

My teacher did make us Turkish Delight though :drool:

I love the BBC versions. I got them all on DVD last Christmas :lol:

The BBC adaptations of the late 1980s are a little creaky, although not entirely without charm ... :p The BBC budget for SFX these days is rather better than it used to be. :lol:

Well, I adored the Narnia Chronicles when I was a kid, and I still love them. :)

I thought the first Narnia movie was absolutely delightful, with some very nice touches to it. Some of the CGI was a bit dodgy though! But, overall, a job well done.

I love the Caspian trailer! Caspian is dreamy. :p But most of all I love that opening sequence on the railway platform ... absolutely perfect. :tu: (I loved the first film opening with a Blitz raid.)

I can't help feeling though that when it comes to fantasy battles, Peter Jackson beat everybody to the punch. ;) I see that one of the big battles in Prince Caspian includes trebuchets. Welll, to me, trebuchets on film will forever mean Minas Tirith! The superb battle scenes in PJ's LotR trilogy raised the bar so high that every other fantasy film has a very hard job to match them. But the good thing is that the huge success of the LotR films - and the Harry Potter franchise, of course! - has led to a renewal of interest in doing other fantasy classics. :)

In any case, Narnia is not LotR and is not meant to be so. If people don't regard Narnia as a wannabe Middle-earth, they should be able to enjoy the stories for their own sake. :)

The BBC adaptations of the late 1980s are a little creaky, although not entirely without charm ... :p The BBC budget for SFX these days is rather better than it used to be. :lol:

Well, I adored the Narnia Chronicles when I was a kid, and I still love them. :)

I thought the first Narnia movie was absolutely delightful, with some very nice touches to it. Some of the CGI was a bit dodgy though! But, overall, a job well done.

I love the Caspian trailer! Caspian is dreamy. :p But most of all I love that opening sequence on the railway platform ... absolutely perfect. :tu: (I loved the first film opening with a Blitz raid.)

I can't help feeling though that when it comes to fantasy battles, Peter Jackson beat everybody to the punch. ;) I see that one of the big battles in Prince Caspian includes trebuchets. Welll, to me, trebuchets on film will forever mean Minas Tirith! The superb battle scenes in PJ's LotR trilogy raised the bar so high that every other fantasy film has a very hard job to match them. But the good thing is that the huge success of the LotR films - and the Harry Potter franchise, of course! - has led to a renewal of interest in doing other fantasy classics. :)

In any case, Narnia is not LotR and is not meant to be so. If people don't regard Narnia as a wannabe Middle-earth, they should be able to enjoy the stories for their own sake. :)


:lol:
I just remember watching the final battle in the BBC version and thinking it was amazing...then I saw it a year ago and I guess I didn't remember most of the creatures would be hand drawn. No biggie though :p

I think that's one of the things that really sold the last Narnia...I remember ALOT of people going around saying it was a 'Childrens LOTR' I agree I think how they're being transported in Caspian looks absolutely amazing.

I think LOTR is great but on a different level. It seems to me that every seems to feel now that EVERY fantasy film must be to that level or bigger nowadays which is unfair lol. The fact that 5 of the Harry Potter films have been so successful made Disney less afraid to persue doing all 7 Narnia books. So in the long run I think the success of each franchise opens up a door for others so we should just enjoy them all without the comparison lol

I love the Chronicles of Narnia, though I discovered the books quite late (in my country they weren't very popular till the movie came out, and so were very hard to find). And, despite some faults in the special effects, I loved The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The way they focused Edmund (as a frightened boy that makes awful things trying to prove himself he's brave enough, instead of the easier -and poorer- option of making him just nasty without reason) and Mr Tumnus, for instance (the scene where he meets Lucy is just delicious), was much deeper than I had expected. I think they caught the essential of Lewis and managed to reflect it. I hope they go on the right path with Prince Caspian! The trailer looks fine.

Adaptating the seven books implies much trouble. The change of characters, for instance: they would have to introduce Eustace for the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and Jill for the Silver Chair, where none of the Pevensies appear. The Last Battle would be great to see, but sincerely I don't know how they're going to make the end, as I don't know how they could make The Magician's Nephew and the creation of Narnia.

And my favourite book, The Horse and his Boy, which happens while the children are living in Narnia, but when they're already adults! But for Aslan and the talking horses, it would look like something completely different, so it's not likely they make it.

I suppose that, if Caspian succeeds, they'll make also The Voyage, but that they won't go farther.

MmeBergerac, I too really loved the portrayal of Edmund in the first Narnia film. :agree:

I also agree with you that there will be huge problems about translating The Magician's Nephew and The Last Battle to screen.

:lol:
I think LOTR is great but on a different level. It seems to me that every seems to feel now that EVERY fantasy film must be to that level or bigger nowadays which is unfair lol. The fact that 5 of the Harry Potter films have been so successful made Disney less afraid to persue doing all 7 Narnia books. So in the long run I think the success of each franchise opens up a door for others so we should just enjoy them all without the comparison lol

Yes, I agree with all these points. :)

The great thing about HP is that the Potterverse is so very different from LotR and Narnia that it doesn't have to compete on those terms. :) The Battle of Hogwarts should absolutely rock on screen, but it will be a very different battle from the kind we saw in LotR and its derivatives. ;) :) I doubt there will be trebuchets. :lol:

The new Chronicles of Narnia was not as good as I thought it would be, never saw the old one though...

The new Chronicles of Narnia was not as good as I thought it would be, never saw the old one though...

There are heaps of clips on YouTube. Here (http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEsSVoOZRO8) is the link to a video with clips from throughout the BBC series.

I love the look of the new trailer! I think this is going to be one great movie.
Also, I do hope they do The Horse and his Boy. They probably could use the original actors for the kids because they'll be older by default after silver chair. Same with Last Battle. They'd better bring them back! It wouldn't look right if they didn't.

Reader--I see I've found another fan of The Horse and His Boy. I'm disposed to be truly excited about that one. As long as they feel like taking creative license with the battles--how about seeing Shasta (the long-lost Prince Cor) really come into his own during the rescue of Archenland instead of having him totally lost while Corin "fights like a man."

Reader--I see I've found another fan of The Horse and His Boy. I'm disposed to be truly excited about that one. As long as they feel like taking creative license with the battles--how about seeing Shasta (the long-lost Prince Cor) really come into his own during the rescue of Archenland instead of having him totally lost while Corin "fights like a man."

It would be nice if they made him really fight, but let's remember he hasn't used a sword in his life (that's part of the fun). Surely Aravis would do better than him in that first battle, though nobody like Shasta to fight lions bare-handed :lol:. But a battle scene with Shasta and Corin fighting together while Coris tries to explain him how to use a sword or something like that would be really funny. Anyway, I hope they keep King Edmund's duel with Prince Rabadash!!! It's such a good laugh.

I'm a huge fan of all the books so really looking forward to new film. I'm hoping they make all seven, my fav book is book seven but I'm thinking they'll need to have the end absolutely word for word from the book to get across the ideas and philosophies that are there when reading.
I liked the silver chair too, should be fun to see how they do Puddleglum.
I'm not sure what I think of Caspian, he seems a bit cliched from the trailer. Also thought it was funny how the railaway scene was at the strand (in the book it's a country station) cos it's a misused underground station so I guess they can film there cheaper!

MmeBergerac--I'm fairly certain that they're required to keep Edmund's duel with Rabadash. I guess I see the progress to the rescue taking more time and Corin helping young Cor to train just for something to do on the road. Rather like the movie edit that shifted the battle with Jadis from her castle to open country.

I've read all the books and I love this movie! :clap: It's just SO good! I can't wait for the Prince Caspian to be in theaters. It looks like it has a lot of action in it. And Lucy is such a cute little girl. :)

I've only read Prince Caspian and The Lion, The Which, and The Wardrob. The movie was awsome though and pretty much like the book. I'm going to see Prince Caspian with my friends for my birthday.

I've read all the books and I totally loved them! Now i'm really looking forward to watch Prince Caspian. Can hardly wait!! :)

I loved the movie! It was really well-done and modeled after the book. I'm looking forward to seeing Prince Caspian. The previews look so intense! :D I wonder if they'll ever make a movie of The Magician's Nephew (my second favorite book, actually), or the Horse's Boy (my least favorite book).

I've never been a big fan of the books - never read them as a kid & tried but couldn't get into them a couple of years ago. I did really love the film though - thought the scenery & just about everything was amazing! Looking forward to seeing what prince caspian is about & what it will be like!

I was never a fan of the books either. I tried to read them several times, but never made it past the first few chapters. I enjoyed the movie immensely though. I though it was very good, I loved the action and everything. I also heard that it stuck true to the book which is good. I cant wait to see Prince Caspian.

I loved the movie! It was really well-done and modeled after the book. I'm looking forward to seeing Prince Caspian. The previews look so intense! :D I wonder if they'll ever make a movie of The Magician's Nephew (my second favorite book, actually), or the Horse's Boy (my least favorite book).
I don't think they'll do all of them. They skipped The Magician's Nephew because it isn't necissarily essential to the plot of the series. And I'm pretty sure they skipped a book or two after The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. They're going stright to Prince Caspian, which I could swear is not right after it. :hmm: Can't be 100% sure because I haven't read the books in a while. I need to reread the book before I see Prince Caspian. :D The trouble is...I can't find them :whistle: But I'm sure the movie will be great. :clap:

The Horse and his Boy comes between The Lion and Prince Caspian, but the story takes place while they're adult kings and queens of Narnia. So, using logic (as Professor Kirke would say), it's inside The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

The problem with making movies from all the seven books is that they have to change half the cast for each one, and that's terrible for a movie saga. You can afford that with books, because they move at a slower pace and the reader has time to reflect and get used to the new characters. But movie-making is different; imagine that in Star Wars you were changing main characters in each movie... It happens with The Lord of the Rings: I know people who didn't like The Two Towers because after a whole movie with the fellowship they felt unable to suddenly simpathise with Eomer, Eowyn, Faramir and the rest.

If they keep making money, they might do all of them, but that'd probably take a decade--maybe as much as 15 years.

I think they've decided to do them in the order they were published, not the order in which events occurred in Narnia.

I'm sure they'll skip The Magician's Nephew and that The Horse and his Boy will be totally forgotten :grumble:. The Lion, Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Silver Chair and The Last Battle make five movies with a decent continuity of plots, despite the constant change of characters. The Magician's Nephew perhaps deserves a prequel, like The Hobbit and LotR movies. But poor Bree has got many numbers to end up without his fifteen minutes of glory.

I hope and pray that they don't skip A Horse and His Boy--because with a Disneyfied treatment--Shasta might actually do something siginificant in the fighting to protect Archenland--that was really the only flaw I could find in the fifth chronicle. Cor became a great swordsman, but he had no reason to practice the art after the battle where he fell off his ordinary horse and skinned his knuckles. Of course--I'd love to hear why Ram, Cor's son was considered the greatest monarch of Archenland--especially because he had such a tough act to follow after his grandfather Lune, and his parents Cor and Aravis.

Of course he had reason to practice fencing! He had to help High King Peter in future wars against the giants, and so. He's an ally of Narnia, he must be ready to war to protect his friends.

Yes, the battle at Anvard would be great to see, but I'd like to see also how they make Shasta's encounter with Aslan and the whole lion-attack thing. Oh, it's my favourite chronicle!

But anyway they'll have to shorten the plots for the next movies. In Prince Caspian it's not imperative, but imagine the Dawn Treader movie with all the places they land at. It would be untolerablily long. The same for The Silver Chair, they'll have to cut something from Underland or so.

Again--for some reason, Dawn Treader didn't make much of an impresion on me. Of the original four, it's my least favorite--and probably my least favorite chronicle overall.

Okay--here's the thing about the Giant Wars. The Giants are WAAY up in the North and West if I remember correctly, so Archenland doesn't share a border with them. Furthermore, while the many Giants are nefarious, for some reason, I got the impression that the "war" with them was mostly raids along the border--they were never organized enough to make a major incursion into Narnia and it seemed that Peter was able to handle them himself with what might be called his Mighty Men (or rather Might Beasts)--this is a reference to the elite in King David's guard in the book of 2nd Samuel.

I Loved This Movie The 2nd One Is Due Out Next Month In North Amercia I Can't Wait It Looks Better Then The First

Well, I'm not sure about "better than the first," but the sequel does look promising--like they'll make the effort to have a fully realized and faithful Prince Caspian. I hope the trend continues.

I really hope they include the last three books. I personally found The Magician's Nephew to be one of the best books in the series, and was rather disappointed when they didn't make a film adaption of that. I knew they would need to go through all that actor hassle and stuff but since I'm not the one doing that I don't like it. :p I couldn't care less about skipping the Horse and His Boy, which I already stated my opinion of in the book thread. But from Prince Caspian on, they are all excellent and would make great action movies. I have a feeling they might skip the Silver Chair, simply because the actors/actresses are all completely different than the film right before and after it, but oh well. :shrug:

I saw Prince Caspian earlier...it was really good. Lots of funny bits and the scenery was nice...I looked on IMDB and apparently Voyage of the Dawn Treader is going to come out May 7th, 2010...that's a long time.

I really hope they include the last three books. I personally found The Magician's Nephew to be one of the best books in the series, and was rather disappointed when they didn't make a film adaption of that.

As I understand it, they're still going to make it. They're filming in order of publication, not in chronological order. Chronologically, The Magician's Nephew is the first book; but in order of publication (the way we were supposed to read the series), it's actually the sixth. So it goes:

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Prince Caspian
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Silver Chair
The Horse and His Boy
The Magician's Nephew
The Last Battle

It seems the movies are following this order, and I fully agree with that idea. The Magician's Nephew is definitely one of my favourites in the series, but TLWW is a much better introduction to the world than MN is. I thought it was fascinating to read MN after I knew about the Wardrobe.

Can I just say how much I LOVE LOVE LOVE Prince Caspian! Seriously, I havn't been this worked up about a movie since the first Pirates of the carribean. It was soooooo good. The only thing I think they left out was aslan going around to the schools and farmlands with lucy and susan at the end. The beauty about the book/movie adaptions is that the books are so small you don't have to worry about all the huge things that will be cut but look forward to everything in the book plus additons, which I have no problem with. As long as they keep the things that were in the book, I have no problem with them adding stuff.
I loved the camera angels for one. How the camera followed the arrows made it feel like they were real and seriously, it was so intense because several times I thought someone got hit! I loved how when peter and miraz are fighting, peter hits miraz's sheild and the camera shakes as if the camera is the sheild.Also the trees! they were AMAZING! the angles on the roots shooting underground were just...awesome! There are plenty more awesome camera direction but I'll leave it here.

Susan totally kicks butt in this movie! She is a real heroine and by the end of the movie I swear I wanted to take up archery.

Edmund is quite impressive. His wimpish attitude is completley forgotten and he becomes an awesome character.

The battle at the castle was awesome and soooo sad! When Peter leaves and he's half crying because he knows that he's leaving some of his men dying....ugg! heartwrenching. I at first thought it was the climax and I was like "uh no! there is so much more to it" then I realized it was the half way point and then I was like 'bonus!' two epic battle scenes! Which, by the way, both kicked butt! They were both so emotional and so intense!.

Caspian himself is not a bad actor, in fact, he's pretty good and is very good looking. I felt for him throughout the movie and cheered for him when he faced miraz. I also loved the chemistry between him and peter. You actually felt like they wanted to kill eachother. I loved as well the chemistry between him and susan(which is not in the book, but a cute addition).

I liked the symbolism that they left with aslan and how everyone didn't want to see him at first or didn't want to believe.

Reepicheep has a bigger role which I think is fine because it is sooo funny. He has this scene where he's attacking telmarines in tall grass that is very reminiscent of the raptors in Jurassic Park 2, only to find that a mouse had done all that damage. hilarious.

The movie is completley dark. It is not sugar coated and I'm glad that it's not. Ever since pirates, I'm not surprised to see a disney movie be so dark. The graphic battle scenes are not goary but you do see heads roll and the cruelty of the telmarines. Call me sadistic but I loved the dark turn.

:love::love::love: love this movie to peices!:tu:

I've heard absolutely nothing about Georgie Henley (Lucy). I enjoyed watching her in the first film but she isn't mentioned in any of the reviews as she seems to have a much smaller part in this film. From what I've seen and read it seems to be much more of a 'boy's film'.

I'm going to go see Prince Caspian tonight. I'm very excited, all the reviews I've read were excellent. :D

I totally agree with everything you said, firebolt57. I will now proceed to disect your post. :p :D

I loved the camera angels for one. How the camera followed the arrows made it feel like they were real and seriously, it was so intense because several times I thought someone got hit! I loved how when peter and miraz are fighting, peter hits miraz's sheild and the camera shakes as if the camera is the sheild.Also the trees! they were AMAZING! the angles on the roots shooting underground were just...awesome! There are plenty more awesome camera direction but I'll leave it here.
Oh that part in the last battle, where everything sort of freezes, and they arrows are just flying... Amazing!! That scene with Peter and Moraz was so cleverly done. I didn't just feel like I was watching it from outside, I felt like I was actually there, fighting. I'm sure that's how the people in the film, like Edmund and Susan felt, and they were trying to get that across, and it just worked so well!! TREES!!! Oh wow, I totally wasn't expecting that!! Also, the part with the countdown, I was like "What on earth are they doing!?" Then, THEY CUT DOWN THE GROUND!!! And they had a secret exit of grass!?!? How cool was that!?!?!? I was like :wow:


Susan totally kicks butt in this movie! She is a real heroine and by the end of the movie I swear I wanted to take up archery.

Edmund is quite impressive. His wimpish attitude is completley forgotten and he becomes an awesome character.
Susan was really amazing in this movie. :lol: I was watching, and then like, 3/4 way through the first battle, the one at the castle, I just turn to my friend and go, "Uhhh... where's Lucy??" Even though she was hardly in this one as much as LWW, she was amazing, too. I love Edmund and his "Last time I didn't believe Lucy, I ended up looking pretty stupid." line. I just :love::love::love: Edmund to pieces in general, but you gathered that I believe. He was so amazing in this movie!!! :love::love::love: ...sorry. Heh, everyone's going to think those are about Caspian. :lol:

The battle at the castle was awesome and soooo sad! When Peter leaves and he's half crying because he knows that he's leaving some of his men dying....ugg! heartwrenching. I at first thought it was the climax and I was like "uh no! there is so much more to it" then I realized it was the half way point and then I was like 'bonus!' two epic battle scenes! Which, by the way, both kicked butt! They were both so emotional and so intense!.
They did both kick butt. Like, majorly so!!!! But yeah, I had kinda the same reaction I was like "Is the whole movie battle going to be fought in the castle??" I mean, cool as that would have probably been, I loved it more this way. But yeah, I felt sooooo sad for Peter!! And speaking of amazing camera work, did you catch as the ramp thing was closing up on the gate, the entire time, there was a solider climbing up, following it, trying to escape?? So amazingly sad and well-done. And can I say again that in this battle, Edmund was jsut amazing!!! Are you an LotR fan?? Because then you will totally get my reaction here: When Edmund was backed up against the tower wall, and had no way out, so he just fell, and was caught by the bird, my first thought was "He totally pulled a Gandalf!!" :rotfl: I'm such a nerd.

Caspian himself is not a bad actor, in fact, he's pretty good and is very good looking. I felt for him throughout the movie and cheered for him when he faced miraz. I also loved the chemistry between him and peter. You actually felt like they wanted to kill each other. I loved as well the chemistry between him and susan(which is not in the book, but a cute addition).
It's been ages since I read it, but I was pretty sure that whole romance thing wasn't in there. Heh, at the movie, my mom had this group of like, 12 year old boys sitting near her, and every time Caspian and Susan even looked at each other, they just groaned. :lol: I love the "You're just not what I was expecting" *eyes up Susan* part. :rotfl: :eyebrows: I did like that part, though. What can I say? I'm a total sap. But yeah, overall, I really liked him. I mean, there were times when I wanted to just punch him in the face (White Witch!! ***!?!? I'm pretty sure that wasn't in the book either, but it was yet another :love: Edmund moment. "I know, you had it sorted." :love:) but I did like him in the end.

I liked the symbolism that they left with aslan and how everyone didn't want to see him at first or didn't want to believe.
Again, it's been so long, I kind of forgot about that part. I knew he didn't have as big a role, but I forgot that that's sort of why Peter and Susan had to leave: they didn't believe really anymore. But Edmund (:love:) still believed Lucy, because he's amazing like that. :whistle: Sorry, I just can't help it. :D

Reepicheep has a bigger role which I think is fine because it is sooo funny. He has this scene where he's attacking telmarines in tall grass that is very reminiscent of the raptors in Jurassic Park 2, only to find that a mouse had done all that damage. hilarious.
"You people have NO imagination!" :rotfl: And I LOVE the part at the end, with the tails. I just love Reepicheep in general. He's so awesome. And the part at the castle with the cat!?!? :rotfl: How can you not love him!?

The movie is completley dark. It is not sugar coated and I'm glad that it's not. Ever since pirates, I'm not surprised to see a disney movie be so dark. The graphic battle scenes are not goary but you do see heads roll and the cruelty of the telmarines. Call me sadistic but I loved the dark turn.
I really liked the darkness, too. I'm so glad they didn't make it a total Disney movie. Like afterwards, my friend and I were discussing how in Golden Compass, that they were gearing it so much towards children, that they totally changed they ending, and I'm soooooooooo glad they didn't do sometihng like that here. But can I just say that had I not been in a public place, I would have sobbed my heart out at the end?? Once I get it on DVD and watch it alone, I probably will. I was just sitting there, and I did cry, but not full out what I would do. I love Peter and Susan, and I'm just so torn up that they'll never come back again, especially since I've read the books. So yeah. :sad::sad::sad:

:love::love::love: love this movie to peices!
Uhm, YEAH!!! Sorry for the lengthy post everyone, but it's totally worth it. :love::love:

HAs it been already released in the US? In Spain we can't watch it July 2nd!

Yeah, it was released yesterday. Now my post seems so cruel in a way. Like it's taunting you. Sorry!! But trust me, totally worth the wait!!

Oh my gosh! I went to see Prince Caspian with my friends yesterday and it was amazing. I don't think it was as good as the first one, but it was deffinitly very good! :tu:

Oh, and can I mention on more thing?? The beginning made me really sad, too. Well, not the beginning, but when they first come back to Narnia. I dunno why, but even when they were running about all happy in the water, it still made me sad, maybe bacause I knew the end. But then when they find the castle, and realize they lived there, then stand in the spots where their thrones once were... :sad: Although I did love the part: "I was so tall!" "Well you were a lot older then." "As opposed to hundreads of years later, when you're younger." :lol: But then Lucy realizes that like, Tumnus and the Beavers and everyone are all dead and it's all :sad: again. Just wanted to add how much I loved that whole part.

I'm hoping to see Prince Caspian soon, so until I do I'm not going to read all those spoilers! :lol: I've been hearing that this movie is supposed to be better than the first (which I now must watch again).

Yeah, it was released yesterday. Now my post seems so cruel in a way. Like it's taunting you. Sorry!! But trust me, totally worth the wait!!

Never mind. It's just that in the last times I had got used to movies to be released here more or less in the same date than in the US :grumble: I hope the date I read was wrong, anyway...

Hope you've enjoyed it.

I totally agree with everything you said, firebolt57. I will now proceed to disect your post. :p :D


Oh that part in the last battle, where everything sort of freezes, and they arrows are just flying... Amazing!! That scene with Peter and Moraz was so cleverly done. I didn't just feel like I was watching it from outside, I felt like I was actually there, fighting. I'm sure that's how the people in the film, like Edmund and Susan felt, and they were trying to get that across, and it just worked so well!! TREES!!! Oh wow, I totally wasn't expecting that!! Also, the part with the countdown, I was like "What on earth are they doing!?" Then, THEY CUT DOWN THE GROUND!!! And they had a secret exit of grass!?!? How cool was that!?!?!? I was like :wow:

Yeah that ground thing was pretty clever and I got a satisfied smile on my face when I saw that they were closing in on the temarines on all sides:cool:


Susan was really amazing in this movie. :lol: I was watching, and then like, 3/4 way through the first battle, the one at the castle, I just turn to my friend and go, "Uhhh... where's Lucy??" Even though she was hardly in this one as much as LWW, she was amazing, too. I love Edmund and his "Last time I didn't believe Lucy, I ended up looking pretty stupid." line. I just :love::love::love: Edmund to pieces in general, but you gathered that I believe. He was so amazing in this movie!!! :love::love::love: ...sorry. Heh, everyone's going to think those are about Caspian. :lol:

Yeah. Lucy has a big part I think because she saw aslan and throughout the whole movie she's persistant but, really, I think peter and susan were the main focus as well as Caspian.... I really can't decide. It seemed like alot of characters got the spot light. And yes Edmund really shined in this one. He annoyed me so much in lww,so it was nice to see him totally redeem himself!


They did both kick butt. Like, majorly so!!!! But yeah, I had kinda the same reaction I was like "Is the whole movie battle going to be fought in the castle??" I mean, cool as that would have probably been, I loved it more this way. But yeah, I felt sooooo sad for Peter!! And speaking of amazing camera work, did you catch as the ramp thing was closing up on the gate, the entire time, there was a solider climbing up, following it, trying to escape?? So amazingly sad and well-done. And can I say again that in this battle, Edmund was jsut amazing!!! Are you an LotR fan?? Because then you will totally get my reaction here: When Edmund was backed up against the tower wall, and had no way out, so he just fell, and was caught by the bird, my first thought was "He totally pulled a Gandalf!!" :rotfl: I'm such a nerd.

I totally know what you mean by the gandalf thing! haha I was thinking the same thing:lol: It's weird that I didn't catch that soldier climbing. I saw it again today because....well...I couldn't help myself :p and I didn't catch it. That's so sad!


It's been ages since I read it, but I was pretty sure that whole romance thing wasn't in there. Heh, at the movie, my mom had this group of like, 12 year old boys sitting near her, and every time Caspian and Susan even looked at each other, they just groaned. :lol: I love the "You're just not what I was expecting" *eyes up Susan* part. :rotfl: :eyebrows: I did like that part, though. What can I say? I'm a total sap. But yeah, overall, I really liked him. I mean, there were times when I wanted to just punch him in the face (White Witch!! ***!?!? I'm pretty sure that wasn't in the book either, but it was yet another :love: Edmund moment. "I know, you had it sorted." :love:) but I did like him in the end.

Yeah, you're right. The romance is never in the book but it's a good addition. The idea of bringing the white witch back was in the book though and nikabrik brought in the hag and the werewolf but I don't think caspian was brought into it at all. Nikabrik just wanted someone who (in his opinion) treated his kind fairly, to finish the job.



Again, it's been so long, I kind of forgot about that part. I knew he didn't have as big a role, but I forgot that that's sort of why Peter and Susan had to leave: they didn't believe really anymore. But Edmund (:love:) still believed Lucy, because he's amazing like that. :whistle: Sorry, I just can't help it. :D

Yeah. the whole symbolism of having faith and the whole 'seeing isn't always believing' I love that. I loved the line lucy said to peter at the stone table. Something about instead of trusting him, maybe we should give reason for him to trust us....i don't know.... something like that....now it's going to drive me crazy because I can't remember the exact wording:grumble


"You people have NO imagination!" :rotfl: And I LOVE the part at the end, with the tails. I just love Reepicheep in general. He's so awesome. And the part at the castle with the cat!?!? :rotfl: How can you not love him!?
I loved it when lucy said "aw! he's so cute!" and reepicheep is like "WHO SAID THAT?":lol:


I really liked the darkness, too. I'm so glad they didn't make it a total Disney movie. Like afterwards, my friend and I were discussing how in Golden Compass, that they were gearing it so much towards children, that they totally changed they ending, and I'm soooooooooo glad they didn't do sometihng like that here. But can I just say that had I not been in a public place, I would have sobbed my heart out at the end?? Once I get it on DVD and watch it alone, I probably will. I was just sitting there, and I did cry, but not full out what I would do. I love Peter and Susan, and I'm just so torn up that they'll never come back again, especially since I've read the books. So yeah. :sad::sad::sad:

I totally agree with you! it was a sort of happy/sad ending. Kind of when frodo has to leave in rotk. It made me feel happy but at the same time I was like "oh!":( I know how you feel. If I wasn't in the company of so many people I would have balled. I did tear up a little though. And that regina Spektor song didn't help stop the flow either because #1, it's a very emotional song and #2 I LOVE Regina Spektor!

[QUOTE=8m57w6;5028863]Oh, and can I mention on more thing?? The beginning made me really sad, too. Well, not the beginning, but when they first come back to Narnia. I dunno why, but even when they were running about all happy in the water, it still made me sad, maybe bacause I knew the end. But then when they find the castle, and realize they lived there, then stand in the spots where their thrones once were... :sad: Although I did love the part: "I was so tall!" "Well you were a lot older then." "As opposed to hundreads of years later, when you're younger." :lol: But then Lucy realizes that like, Tumnus and the Beavers and everyone are all dead and it's all :sad: again. Just wanted to add how much I loved that whole part.

I know! so sad! Even when they were playing in the water it was the same sad/happy thing! Like they were happy but we knew that they wouldn't be for long or something. It also made me really sad when they saw the stone table for the first time and the paintings on the walls...:( especially the picture of Tumnus and the lampost!

I loved it! :D This was easily better than the Lion the Witch and the Warbrobe. Almost everything about it was great.

Was it just me, or did Susan/Caspian seem incredibly forced? I never really saw a beginning to their relationship, besides that incredibly cheesy "call me" line. :rotfl:

Nikabrik wasn't super evil in the book, was he? I don't remember him and that hag and wolf trying to bring back the White Witch. What was the point of that?

The part where Peter had to leave the gates and the rest of the soldiers were still trapped inside was so sad! :sad: I didn't know that there were a ton of people waiting back at the Stone Table with Lucy, so I was like "HOw will they win with an army of ten people?" :lol:

I loved Miraz's death. Caspian was just great in that scene, saying he would be a king but not like Miraz. And then his general dude killed him! Yay! :D

Just saw it yesterday and was pretty impressed. I think it could have been a bit more colorful, but the CGI was absolutely amazing!! The centaurs looked real! I loved the costumes as well they did a great job with that.

The kid who played Edmund got so tall! He must have grown over a foot since the last movie. Caspian was all right, but I wasn't super impressed with his performance. The romancey bit was definitely forced!

There were a couple confusing and strange parts though. Like, who carries a huge flashlight around in their school bag?
Why was Lucy going into the forest anyway at the end? Aslan couldn't come to her anywhere else? She had to be somewhere dangerous?
The whole part with the werewolf and the hag reminded me of Pan's Labyrinth for some reason--creepy evil I guess, but the scene just didn't feel well constructed. Though I loved the ending with Edmund.
I also thought it was funny when Caspian rides in to save Susan when she's taking Lucy into the forest. She gives him this 'my hero' look, even though she was the one who killed 5 of the 6 attackers :lol: such is flirting I suppose!

The kid who played Edmund got so tall! He must have grown over a foot since the last movie. Caspian was all right, but I wasn't super impressed with his performance. The romancey bit was definitely forced!
I read on imdb that Skander Keynes grew something like 6 inches during LWW!!! But yeah, he and especially Georgie Henley look so much older in this film than in the last one. And in my opinion, those two, out of all 5 of the younger actors, really do the best. Not that William and Anna and Ben are bad, I just think the younger two really are amazing actors.

There were a couple confusing and strange parts though. Like, who carries a huge flashlight around in their school bag?
Why was Lucy going into the forest anyway at the end? Aslan couldn't come to her anywhere else? She had to be somewhere dangerous?
The whole part with the werewolf and the hag reminded me of Pan's Labyrinth for some reason--creepy evil I guess, but the scene just didn't feel well constructed. Though I loved the ending with Edmund.
I also thought it was funny when Caspian rides in to save Susan when she's taking Lucy into the forest. She gives him this 'my hero' look, even though she was the one who killed 5 of the 6 attackers :lol: such is flirting I suppose!
I think it's because she first saw him in the forest that she had to go there to find him again. Aslan said something about like "Why didn't you come and find me?" Plus you know, things never happen the same way twice. They had to find him this time, bot the other way around.
Yeah, I loved the ending with Edmund, too. "I know, you had it sorted." :love:
I think the romance thing was a cute addition, but it did seem a bit forced at points. But yeah, their little flirting bits were pretty amusing. I think it sort of added a lighter air to the film. Except at the end. Then I just cried. :sad:

Oh, and firebolt57, I believe the quote is something like:
Maybe we have to prove ourselves to him this time.
Oh also, is that song at the end something just for the movie?? If not, could you owl me the name of it?? Thanks!!

Wow, this looks like a real disaster for Disney & Buena Vista. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080518/film_nm/boxoffice_dc) I did not like the first film, but I realized that it was fairly popular: Witch & Wardrobe audiences had 83% positive at BoxOfficeMojo. (That is about halfway between the first two HP films and the last three HP films, for context). In general, sequels of blockbusters that are that popular start off with even bigger openings, as the 83% that like the film rush out to see it. (They then fade more rapidly as the 17% never returns).

Now, Caspian will not get the holiday bump that Wardrobe got (LWW was an early December film), so I would have predicted that Caspian would get about 75% of Lion's ticket sales. Given inflation, that would be a box office of about $240M.

That is NOT going to happen. Despite a huge distribution (8500 screens at 3900 theaters), the opening weekend was only $56M in N. America. WD & BV were expecting $80M and they were hoping for $100M: they were talking about toping Iron Man!. Given that sequels always fade faster than originals, Caspian will probably reach its halfway mark in sales next weekend at under $100M. The Memorial Day weekend will boost it a little, but it is now extremely improbable that it will reach $200M. Disney & Buena Vista will have been promising its shareholders a lot more than that!

"Word-of-mouth" has no effect on sequels (see Menace, Phantom), but that would not matter. Caspian is getting only OK reviews (70% positive at last look, with critics averaging 3 of 5 stars). More importantly, audience reaction is not good: 83% positive would be pretty good overall, but NOT on opening weekend, when you are non-randomly drawing people predisposed to like a film. So, word-of-mouth is going to be pretty bad: but that probably will affect only rentals these days.


It will be interesting to see what happens to Dawn Treader. A very real possibility is that it will be scratched, just as Subtle Knife has been. However, given that studios always feel that lightening can strike twice and give that LWW did play lightening, my guess is that Disney will go ahead but that we will see a Prisoner-like shakeup of the franchise. The problem, however, is that whereas Prisoner was a far superior story to Stone or Chamber, Treader is even weaker than Caspian (which is even weaker than Lion). And it drops steadily from there, too.


(I write this purely as a movie buff; I have no interest in seeing Caspian given how dull Lion was and also given that Caspian was a dull book next to Lion: but I really expected Caspian to do well in the Box Office and then DawnTreader to suffer from Caspian's lack of story.)

So, it's official.

After "Prince Caspian", they decided to do "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader".

Ben Barnes, Georgia Henley, Skandar Keynes, and Eddie Izzard are set to reprise their respective roles of Caspian (now King Caspian the Tenth), Lucy, Edmund, and Reepicheep. Liam Neeson will also resume his role as Aslan.

Other points of interest:

The director will not be Andrew Adamson, who directed "Prince Caspian". He is, however, listed as a producer for "Dawn Treader", and has passed on the torch to Michael Apted, the new director. The film scorer is (yet another) new name, David Arnold.

Isis Mussenden, the costume designer for "Prince Caspian" will also be on board for "Dawn Treader". Joining her will be Jim Rygiel and Richard Taylor. Jim will be the senior special effects supervisor and Richard will be with Weta Digital making the special effects themselves for the film. Reason why this last bit is good news? Both of these men have experience with big-scale fantasy films: they did "Lord of the Rings", the biggest of them all.

Dates

Production begins: October 2008
Set release date: May 7, 2010



So. Who's excited? :lol: I know I am! I'm probably the biggest "Dawn Treader" movie info geek on this site, so if you have any questions, I can probably answer them!

Personally, I was very pleased with "Prince Caspian", and I can't wait for "Dawn Treader" and to see what they do with it (it was my favorite book in the series).

WETA Digital is going to do this! Wow!!! How on earth are they going to manage? They'll be right in the middle of doingt he two Hobbit films for 2011 and 2012. That's pretty awesome. WETA is really getting big if they manage to do that!


2010 is going to be a crazy year, what with TWO DH films and the next big Narnia film... wow....

I really look forward to this - it's going to be fun. And I for one definitely can cope with more Ben Barnes ;) :D

We all can cope with more Ben, believe me.

Also, according to some top sources, they are considering doing "The Silver Chair".

Quite honestly, I was more pleased to see that Jim Rygiel is going to be involved. :) As well as Isis Mussenden. She did a good job.

Despite their listing under the "Dawn Treader" cast, William Moseley and Anna Poppelwell will not be in the film, not even for a short cameo. Anna has stated in an interview that she and William will not be in the next movie.

I think Caspian was not a very good book, and they did much better with the movie, but I do not think it will be the best out of all the movies.
I do think they will make all of them, mainly because they have a lot of great material to work with later on, and they just have to get to it. They did very well with Caspian, for such a dry book, and I was extremely impressed with both the acting and filming. Those kids can ACT.
Caution. Spoilers for the next books ahead.
The only weird thing was, well, you know the whole Caspian and Susan thing, he, like, sort of gets married in Dawn Treader....So that was a bit odd.
I loved the White Witch part, especially Edmund shattering the glass. He seemed a bit annoyed, like, 'Sheesh, we already killed her, don't bring her back, idiots!' Or maybe a bit more like, 'Been there, done that, not a good idea.' Coupled with his awesome line, a moment in movie history to remember.
It was really dark, which I thought was very good for setting up some of the later movies. Dawn Treader ought to be a little more lighthearted, but a bit scarier, and they can go all out with the creeps for Silver Chair. Horse and his Boy can be a little more like LWW, and Magicians Nephew can be darker, but happier. And then Last Battle, well, the darkest of them all, but then big happy at the end.

One of the things that they have to be careful about, though, is that most of the characters reappear throughout the series, though not necessarily in Narnia, some of them even dead. In Horse and his Boy, they will have to bring the four kids back, older (except for Peter), and I think they will be able to use the original actors, given how much they'll have grown, same with Last Battle, which pretty much everyone is in at the end at least, (If they don't re-write the whole Susan thing, I will be very mad.)
I'm glad they seem to be being careful to keep the White Witch actress, by giving her a small part in Caspian, because they really really need her later on.

I do think they will make all of them, mainly because they have a lot of great material to work with later on, and they just have to get to it. They did very well with Caspian, for such a dry book, and I was extremely impressed with both the acting and filming. Those kids can ACT.
Ah, but the consensus is that they did not do that well with Caspian: it is getting much poorer reviews and audience marks than Lion got.

Disney is a business. If a line does not do as well as expected, then the line will be terminated. The fact that future books might be better (which itself is a dubious suggestion!) will not matter: if people do not like Caspian, then no matter how good the reviews or word-of-mouth is for DawnTreader, they will stay home because they "know" that they do not like this series. We saw this happen with Prisoner of Azkaban, just as we saw the opposite happen with Phantom Menace. So, Disney knows that the audience lost now will not come back. (For comparison, the Harry Potter series never recovered the 20% of the audience that did not like Stone.)

Now, it is remotely possible that Caspian will some how pick it up at the BoxOffice. However, blockbusters in general and sequels of blockbusters in particular make nearly all of their money up front. It probably will not make twice of what it has by this Saturday: and that probably will not be $100M. (Overseas sales will not figure into this decision because Disney/Buena Vista see very little of that money, as they have to sell the distribution rights to foreign distributors.) That could easily lead to the suspension of the series: whether future films might be better will not be an issue because Disney will know that people are not interested in more Narnia. At the very least, we will see a Prisoner-like shakeup of the franchise.

EDIT: This article (http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=2497&p=.htm) probably summarizes the situation. What it sort of skirts over is the fact that although sequels usually make less in the long run, they usually make more up front. However, Caspian sold only ~82% of the tickets that Lion did in its opening weekend; given everything else that the article mentions, Caspian will fall well short of Lion's box office totals.

Wow, this looks like a real disaster for Disney & Buena Vista. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080518/film_nm/boxoffice_dc) I did not like the first film, but I realized that it was fairly popular: Witch & Wardrobe audiences had 83% positive at BoxOfficeMojo. (That is about halfway between the first two HP films and the last three HP films, for context). In general, sequels of blockbusters that are that popular start off with even bigger openings, as the 83% that like the film rush out to see it. (They then fade more rapidly as the 17% never returns).

Now, Caspian will not get the holiday bump that Wardrobe got (LWW was an early December film), so I would have predicted that Caspian would get about 75% of Lion's ticket sales. Given inflation, that would be a box office of about $240M.

That is NOT going to happen. Despite a huge distribution (8500 screens at 3900 theaters), the opening weekend was only $56M in N. America. WD & BV were expecting $80M and they were hoping for $100M: they were talking about toping Iron Man!. Given that sequels always fade faster than originals, Caspian will probably reach its halfway mark in sales next weekend at under $100M. The Memorial Day weekend will boost it a little, but it is now extremely improbable that it will reach $200M. Disney & Buena Vista will have been promising its shareholders a lot more than that!

"Word-of-mouth" has no effect on sequels (see Menace, Phantom), but that would not matter. Caspian is getting only OK reviews (70% positive at last look, with critics averaging 3 of 5 stars). More importantly, audience reaction is not good: 83% positive would be pretty good overall, but NOT on opening weekend, when you are non-randomly drawing people predisposed to like a film. So, word-of-mouth is going to be pretty bad: but that probably will affect only rentals these days.


It will be interesting to see what happens to Dawn Treader. A very real possibility is that it will be scratched, just as Subtle Knife has been. However, given that studios always feel that lightening can strike twice and give that LWW did play lightening, my guess is that Disney will go ahead but that we will see a Prisoner-like shakeup of the franchise. The problem, however, is that whereas Prisoner was a far superior story to Stone or Chamber, Treader is even weaker than Caspian (which is even weaker than Lion). And it drops steadily from there, too.


(I write this purely as a movie buff; I have no interest in seeing Caspian given how dull Lion was and also given that Caspian was a dull book next to Lion: but I really expected Caspian to do well in the Box Office and then DawnTreader to suffer from Caspian's lack of story.)


If you saw the movie, you would NOT think it's dull. seriously. I havn't been this worked up about a movie since the first Pirates! But maybe thats just me.:relax:

I loved it! :D This was easily better than the Lion the Witch and the Warbrobe. Almost everything about it was great.

Was it just me, or did Susan/Caspian seem incredibly forced? I never really saw a beginning to their relationship, besides that incredibly cheesy "call me" line. :rotfl:

Nikabrik wasn't super evil in the book, was he? I don't remember him and that hag and wolf trying to bring back the White Witch. What was the point of that?

The part where Peter had to leave the gates and the rest of the soldiers were still trapped inside was so sad! :sad: I didn't know that there were a ton of people waiting back at the Stone Table with Lucy, so I was like "HOw will they win with an army of ten people?" :lol:

I loved Miraz's death. Caspian was just great in that scene, saying he would be a king but not like Miraz. And then his general dude killed him! Yay! :D

Nikabrik wasn't evil but he did want the witch to come back and brought the hag and werewolf along, so in a way, he was the enemy. I read the book right before I saw the movie and the scene in the book is somewhat similar to the movie. The pevensies are waiting outside the door listening to a council and Caspian is asking Nikabrik who his friends are ( the hag and the werewolf) and why should they trust them. In the meeting, Nikabrik brings up the idea of bringing the white witch back and they get in a huge fight with drawn swords, the pevensies run in and that's how the scene goes in the book. The movie was only a little different. Caspian wasn't involved in the plan and the witch wasn't really there. The idea of bringing the witch back was only talked about. Not acted on. But I loved it anyway.:love

If you saw the movie, you would NOT think it's dull. seriously. I havn't been this worked up about a movie since the first Pirates! But maybe thats just me.

Agreed! It's not dull, and some people just haven't given it a chance. It's also not the best time to release a movie, as well, as it is pretty much almost finals, and it has to compete with some other really good movies like Indiana Jones.
One of the things that puts people off these books-I know this because a lot of my friends are like this-is the religious parallels. Lots of people don't like that.

I saw Prince Caspian yesterday- and it was an awesome movie :tu::tu::tu: I agree with firebolt57- definitely a must see.:love: I would post more of a review, but I'm not sure how to hide the spoilers yet.

I am disappointed that it did not do as well as expected on its opening weekend. I really hope it does not jeopardize the franchise as a whole. It was really a wonderful movie- visually stunning, great action, wonderful story, etc. I actually thought it was a step up from LWW. They did alter some plot points but stayed true to the spirit of the story. Normally, especially with HP, it really bothers me when they deviate from the book but in this case I actually felt the changes from the book enhanced the movie.

In general, I despise movies-from-books. I think books are far better than their big screen counterparts on almost any given day. Take HP for example. I really do love the books, but the movies are pretty give and take, as far as I'm concerned.
In my opinion, Disney is doing a MUCH better job making The Chronicles series then Warner Bros. has been doing with HP so far. There are some things that I, as a fan of the books first and foremost, can be a bit nitpicky about, but I realize that there must be creative license for the movie makers as well (although the Susan/Caspian thing just kind of creeped me out, I will admit).
I would really like the see what Disney could do with the rest of the books. I am not one of those people who thinks that any of the books are dull - on the contrary, I adore all of them. Each is a masterpiece in my opinion, and if Disney would continue to make them all in the same vein as they made Lion and which they have now made Caspian, I will go see the movie, I will buy the movie, and I will probably keep my ticket stubs.

If you saw the movie, you would NOT think it's dull. seriously. I havn't been this worked up about a movie since the first Pirates! But maybe thats just me.:relax:It is not just you: but given the reviews, you are (at best) in a small majority and possibly in the minority.

What people who saw the movie think of is not the concern, however. The news is worse than originally reported: Caspian made only $55M. Given the popularity of Lion, there really should have been at least 10% increase in ticket sales on the first weekend. That, plus inflation, should have generated an $80M weekend. Ow!

Now, yes, blockbuster sequels without hobbits or Capt. Jack usually sell fewer tickets over the long haul: but "sequel fatigue" sets in later. We have seen this with the Harry Potter and SpiderMan films, where the opening box offices remain big, but with the box offices then trailing off more quickly as people who did not like the prior films fail to ever buy a ticket. Even for Lord of the Rings, ticket sales for Towers and King fell off much more rapidly than they did for Fellowship, even though both of the "sequels" in those cases actually sold more tickets than did the "original."

So, despite Lion's popularity just 30 months ago, people lost interest since then. Yes, some people will say it is because Caspian is an inferior movie: but this leaves out the fact that people who liked Lion were not going to think that Caspian was inferior without seeing it. We saw that with Phantom Menace.

That gets back to my original question: what happened? Barring a totally unique box-office pattern, Caspian will sell under 60% of Lion's tickets. If word of mouth could affect sequels (and despite the gushes here, it is NOT getting gushes in general), if word-of-mouth could affect sequels then Phantom Menace would not have been selling over 1 million tickets a weekend after 10 weeks. (We knew that film was bad even before it opened!) For some reason, people do not remember that the liked Narnia 30 months ago. So, did they forget, or did they change their minds?

In my opinion, Disney is doing a MUCH better job making The Chronicles series then Warner Bros. has been doing with HP so far. .... would really like the see what Disney could do with the rest of the books. I am not one of those people who thinks that any of the books are dull - on the contrary, I adore all of them.
Again, I think that you will find that you are in a minority there. Lion got worse reviews than any of the Potter films, even the Columbus ones, and Caspian is nowhere near those. Lion's audience reaction was better than the audience reaction to Stone or Chamber, but far below that to Prisoner, Goblet or Order. (We have seen part of the fallout of this: Prisoner & Goblet brought back bigger or equally big audiences, whereas Lion clearly is going to bring back a much smaller audience.)

In part, I think that the problem might lie with your second statement. The books are all plot and theme with no stories. I mean, can anyone here state the story of Prince Caspian in one line? The last three HP films have been very good at presenting the story: Rowling's stories about Hard vs. Wrong Choices of Truths/Braveries/Isolation rang through pretty clear. Lord of the Rings was even better: it was hard to miss Tolkien's story about Preserving/Restoring Natural Order. Caspian might have been vaguely about that: but, if so, then it was not well-told.

In comparison, look at Iron Man, which is drawing raves from critics and audiences alike. That oozes story; and if a film fails to tell a story, then it often leaves audiences indifferent afterwards.

(That being written, 30 months ago, people liked Wardrobe, which means that they should have wanted to see Caspian, even though the vast majority of them have not read these books: so, again, what happened?)

This proves your theory wrong, Wimsey. Just because the original did well does not completely assure that the audience will return for the sequel.

I have a feeling one of the reasons people will only go see a sequel if there were some loose ends in the last movie. Did Lion have any loose ends or hanging threads to be resolved?

Tolkien must be boasting to his friend C.S Lewis in the afterlife about how much more successful the adaptations of his LOTR was than Lewis's Narnia. ;)

This proves your theory wrong, Wimsey. Just because the original did well does not completely assure that the audience will return for the sequel.Once again, you do not understand what I wrote. It is not a question of how well film #1 does: "how well" is an issue of how many tickets it sold. Instead, it is a question of how many people liked the original (or prior) film. In general, you can predict the audience for film #2 by simply multiplying the ticket sales of film #1 by inflation and the percentage of people that liked film #1.

And, of course, single exceptions cannot falsify a theory: you then are left needing individual explanations for the vast majority of cases where the theory predicts things perfectly. A little rule called Occam's Razor says "do not do that." Occasional exceptions such as Caspian mean only that the audience does not remember that they liked the prior film, and that is obviously what has happened here.

And, again, the question is why?
I have a feeling one of the reasons people will only go see a sequel if there were some loose ends in the last movie. Did Lion have any loose ends or hanging threads to be resolved?If this were true, then the BatMan, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean, Shrek, James Bond, Men In Black, etc., films would not have had huge box offices for the sequels: box offices that were, incidentally, predicted extremely well by audience reaction to the prior films! The realization that Box Office #1 X Audience Approval #1 X Inflation = Approximate Box Office #2 first came about long ago, when all of data points were films in which the "sequel" was just story using the same characters (a la James Bond, Jaws, the 2nd Star Wars film, etc.: remember, the idea of a "hanging thread" was non-existent before Empire!)

That being said, there was the one big hanging thread: would the kids ever find a way back to Narnia? Of course, after 30 months, the only thing that I would expect the audience to remember is whether they liked the movie: but it seems that they have already forgotten that they did.
Tolkien must be boasting to his friend C.S Lewis in the afterlife about how much more successful the adaptations of his LOTR was than Lewis's Narnia. ;)Possibly: but Tolkien was far less kind in his description of Lewis' work than Lewis was about Tolkien's! Of course, Tolkien had problems with Lewis' brand of Christianity: the former described the themes of some of Lewis' books to be downright heretical! <insert Inquisition Icon> :cool:

Once again, you do not understand what I wrote. It is not a question of how well film #1 does: "how well" is an issue of how many tickets it sold. Instead, it is a question of how many people liked the original (or prior) film. In general, you can predict the audience for film #2 by simply multiplying the ticket sales of film #1 by inflation and the percentage of people that liked film #1.

And, of course, single exceptions cannot falsify a theory: you then are left needing individual explanations for the vast majority of cases where the theory predicts things perfectly. A little rule called Occam's Razor says "do not do that." Occasional exceptions such as Caspian mean only that the audience does not remember that they liked the prior film, and that is obviously what has happened here.

And, again, the question is why?
If this were true, then the BatMan, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean, Shrek, James Bond, Men In Black, etc., films would not have had huge box offices for the sequels: box offices that were, incidentally, predicted extremely well by audience reaction to the prior films! The realization that Box Office #1 X Audience Approval #1 X Inflation = Approximate Box Office #2 first came about long ago, when all of data points were films in which the "sequel" was just story using the same characters (a la James Bond, Jaws, the 2nd Star Wars film, etc.: remember, the idea of a "hanging thread" was non-existent before Empire!)

That being said, there was the one big hanging thread: would the kids ever find a way back to Narnia? Of course, after 30 months, the only thing that I would expect the audience to remember is whether they liked the movie: but it seems that they have already forgotten that they did.
Possibly: but Tolkien was far less kind in his description of Lewis' work than Lewis was about Tolkien's! Of course, Tolkien had problems with Lewis' brand of Christianity: the former described the themes of some of Lewis' books to be downright heretical! <insert Inquisition Icon> :cool:

My apologies, Wimsey.

It's an interesting phenomenon isn't it? It's an issue that has marketing execs working overtime. Just what brings people back to a sequel?

Obviously, you are correct in that the number of ticket sales for a film does not predict the return number for the sequel(s) because if that were the case then Attack of the Clones should have made ten times the amount of money than it did based on Phantom Menace's box office breakthrough. As you state, it depends on whether people liked and enjoyed the movie. But I don't think it is even this simple.

Now I have not seen or read any of the Narnia stories but is it one long story like LOTR, or is it more of a coming of age tale like HP or is it more akin to James Bond where it's just the same characters but completely different villains and situations each movie?

You see, Lord of the Rings was a blessing in a way because it really was one story split into three movies. If you see the first movie and enjoy it, there really is no question you will return to see the second film since Fellowship basically just ends with the Hobbits still trekking on to Mordor and the Hunters off to rescue Merry and Pippin. Fellowship was alot like Empire Strikes Back in that it was quite literally a cliffhanger and that assures people who enjoyed that movie to return. Same for Two Towers. You know the hobbits still have to get to mordor so if you enjoyed the movie, you will no doubt be interested in the last part and LOTR had another blessing in that they filmed them all at once and thus were able to release the films barely a year apart so it was like one continuous LOTR frenzy for two years rather than a stop and go period as it was for most other films like Star Wars and Potter.

Now, Star Wars I think is unique and shouldn't be treated as an ordinary movie since Star Wars sort of defined the summer blockbuster. You know, you just have to say there's a new Star Wars movie coming out and people will rush to see it, no matter what the reviews are. Obviously Menace turned alot of people off but even so, they still rushed to see Menace as you say.

So, it's a tricky issue and I don't think you can really estimate or track if the sequel of a movie will be as successful as the original.

I think there requires three nessesary elements for people to want to see more of a particular franchise:

1. The first movie had to be more than just a good movie. It had to really blow them away and pull them into the world of the film and truly connect them with the characters.

2. It needs to have some sort of loose end even if it's a complete film and can stand on it's own. Even Star Wars which worked really well as a stand alone one off film had Darth Vader escaping at the end. People need to be able to logically piece together why there needs to be a sequel. "Oh, right. That one villain escaped at the end!"

3. The sequel needs to continue the story in some way. Rehashes rarely work. The sequel needs to further develop the characters and the story and new elements need to be introduced at the same time. The marketing (trailers, posters) needs to reflect these things and promise people this.

You also need to take into account the time and season that the film is released and the competition. Since a ticket costs so much nowadays, people usually would only see one film every few months and many people might rather see Indiana Jones.

Alas though, I feel it's really random. If I had to make an educated guess, I would say while the world enjoyed the first Narnia movie, it wasn't enough that they clamored for more.

You have to admit though...it'd be damn interesting to watch Tolkien and Lewis debate how and why each of their adaptations fared with the modern audience. :p

Now I have not seen or read any of the Narnia stories but is it one long story like LOTR, or is it more of a coming of age tale like HP or is it more akin to James Bond where it's just the same characters but completely different villains and situations each movie?

It is kind of like one long story, but the thing is, Lewis didn't exactly write them all in order.

The order went: "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe", "Prince Caspian", "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader", "The Silver Chair", "The Horse and His Boy", "The Magician's Nephew", and then "The Last Battle".

It's sort of a coming-of-age tale for certain characters, like Peter and Caspian, but I wouldn't say it's like that for the whole story.

There's only one character that really lasts long in the Narnia books, and that's Caspian. Almost all of his 66 years of life are covered in the books. He's the most developed Narnian character, and probably the one who sticks around the longest. There's no real consistent villain or hero in "The Chronicles of Narnia", except maybe the Pevensie children or Caspian for the heroes. Not even Jadis (the White Witch) sticks around in her Witch persona; in "The Silver Chair", it was thought that she is the Lady of the Green Kirtle, but that is in theory.




You have to admit though...it'd be damn interesting to watch Tolkien and Lewis debate how and why each of their adaptations fared with the modern audience. :p

Funny you should mention that...

Tolkien and Lewis were actually buddies, to the point where Tolkien based one of his character's way of speaking off of Lewis: Treebeard's blustery and drawn-out way of talking was extraordinarily similar to Lewis' form of speech.

Oh, I know Tolkien and Lewis were buddies. That's why I said it would be interesting.

Thanks for the info on Narnia, btw. :)

I'll leave it to people more familiar with the work to analyze why many people seemed to have lost interest in the films as a series even when the first film had a reasonably positive reception and even won an academy award for make up (Revenge of the Sith should have won that one though...grrr :grumble:)

One of my favourites was always The Horse and his Boy. I enjoyed the glimpses that we saw of the Pevensies grown up as fully fledged Kings and Queens of Narnia. I wonder how they would go about depicting the Calormenes though, the rascist depiction of their appearance and culture is the reason that I cannot fully enjoy the book. I think that they would try to make Aravis into a role model for girls.

I enjoyed the movies, actually. Even though they left out a lot of the books and changed things around, it was, all in all, pretty good. I really liked the graphics, especially.

PRINCE CASPIAN SPOILER:
I did not like the love story in Prince Caspian, though. The kiss at the end was completely unnecessary. A hug, maybe, and a sweet farewell, but not the kiss. I did not expect it.

Again, I think that you will find that you are in a minority there. Lion got worse reviews than any of the Potter films, even the Columbus ones, and Caspian is nowhere near those. Lion's audience reaction was better than the audience reaction to Stone or Chamber, but far below that to Prisoner, Goblet or Order. (We have seen part of the fallout of this: Prisoner & Goblet brought back bigger or equally big audiences, whereas Lion clearly is going to bring back a much smaller audience.)

In part, I think that the problem might lie with your second statement. The books are all plot and theme with no stories. I mean, can anyone here state the story of Prince Caspian in one line? The last three HP films have been very good at presenting the story: Rowling's stories about Hard vs. Wrong Choices of Truths/Braveries/Isolation rang through pretty clear. Lord of the Rings was even better: it was hard to miss Tolkien's story about Preserving/Restoring Natural Order. Caspian might have been vaguely about that: but, if so, then it was not well-told.

Prince Caspian is the story of a boy who escapes his evil uncle in order to help restore Narnia to its former glory with the help of the Kings and Queens of old. At least, that's how I'd do it. :)
I suppose that it is possible that I could be in the minority here, but it is not a position I mind. DaVinci was not so popular while he was actually out there painting, after all. :)
I really did enjoy the movie. I rarely ever listen to what critics say, because in general I find most of them to be blustering and self-important (sorry. I am sure they are very nice people, but I almost never agree with them.). Other than that, I will say this: I hope that all the movies are made. I think they could each be beautiful, inspiring, hopeful works of art - pieces that could do some justice to Lewis' work. If they are not made, I will be disappointed, but it won't stop me from loving the movies that they have made, nor will it ever stop me from loving the books. :)

I never listen to the critics either. Just because they say the movie was horrible, doesn't mean it actually was. There are a lot of factors, some that we don't even think about.
I do think that Caspian and LWW were both much better than Harry Potter. The reason the HP movies have done so well is that they were already hugely famous and popular, and you can't really hurt anything HP related. It will always sell. But Narnia, though well-known, is looked upon as a kiddie book. HP has proven itself, but Narnia has not. Yes, there are adults who like Narnia. But people of all ages likes HP.
I, personally, do not like the HP films at all. I like a film that if made from a book, stays true to the book, like Narnia has done. As a book lover, to see a movie with some of the exact same lines is amazing and a wonderful experience. And, I also agree, that the places where they went off the books, really helped to push along the story, as well as the parts they cut. The air-raids in LWW gave a great start, and set the theme of war. The cuts and additions in Caspian were brilliant.

I never listen to the critics either. Just because they say the movie was horrible, doesn't mean it actually was. There are a lot of factors, some that we don't even think about.I completely agree. If I see a preview for a movie that I think looks pretty interesting, I will go see it even if the critics don't like it. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and I really couldn't care less what the critics think. They're looking to give movies bad reviews. Sorry Wimsey, but I don't really care if other people say they didn't like the movie. That won't stop me from seeing it, and that was not even a factor with Prince Caspian. I loved it. :)

In this particular case (Prince Caspian) I think the movie - though it didn't actually blew me away - is better than the book. The middle part of the book I found quite boring, in fact.

I mistakenly posted my review of the movie in the Book section, same thread title, here: http://www.cosforums.com/showthread.php?t=114774
(My review is in post #77)

I'd copy it here but I'm not sure it's allowed to post the same thing twice.

MoD: no problem!

Prince Caspian is the story of a boy who escapes his evil uncle in order to help restore Narnia to its former glory with the help of the Kings and Queens of old. At least, that's how I'd do it. :)You have described the plot, not the story! That is like describing the palate of a Merlot as very dark, almost purplish red. Have you described something about the wine? Yes. Have you described the palate? Nope! ("Plum-like, with hints of nutmeg and wood" would be a possible description: but "red" is not a flavor!)

For comparison, J.R.R. Tolkien wrote that Lord of the Rings was a story about Death and Immortality. People banding together to destroy the One Ring describes something about the tale: but clearly not the story! So, what describes Lion (or Caspian) in the same way that "Death and Immortality" (or, I would argue, "Preserving/Restoring Natural Order") describes Lord of the Rings?

This is important because all plot and no story will leave a tale feeling "hollow." The great movies of history have not been simply entertaining: but they also have told stories that stuck in the back of people's minds.

I never listen to the critics either. Just because they say the movie was horrible, doesn't mean it actually was. There are a lot of factors, some that we don't even think about.Well, the critics think about these factors, even if we don't!

Ultimately, critics of books and films evaluate on: How well a story is told (writing, direction, dialogue, performance, etc.);
coherence of plot;
the "virtue" of the story and themes.By the latter, I mean that there are some stories that critics dislike. For example, the Order movie was not criticized for how well the story was told, but for the story that was told: the isolation story that made the protagonist look like a jerk did not sit well with the critics. For the Narnia films, there has been criticism of both the story that was told and how well it was told.

General audiences tend to judge films based on how entertaining they are. However, do not underestimate the importance of story: no matter how much "fun" a film is visually, if it does not tell anything, then audiences will dislike it. We saw that with the Star Wars prequels.

Book fans tend to judge films by how well they replicate the books: however, as they represent a small minority of the people who read the books, they are not a real factor in how well movies are received. The very faithful Lion was well-received by audiences whereas the very faithful Stone and Chamber were not so well-received; meanwhile, the extensively modified Lord of the Rings was extraordinarily-well received by audiences.

So, if critics say that a movie was bad, then it probably was. This does not say that the film was unenjoyable: and the best critics will tell you that he/she enjoyed a movie but thought that it was really bad. (Siskel & Ebert used to do "Guilty Pleasures" episodes every few years, in which they went through films that they knew were awful but that they could not help but to enjoy!)


But that gets back to my original question. Lion was well-received by audiences even if critics were less enamored by it. (Caspian has been even less-well received: but we know that has little effect on sequels, as people will ignore critics when they have already formed an opinion based on a prior film.) The age-old truism is that a well-received blockbuster will generate a well-attended sequel: and if that is well-received, then the next sequel should be well-received. There are very few exceptions to this rule: but we might be looking at one.

Another general truth is that sequels burn hotter and faster in the box office. There are exceptions: for example, Stone opened extremely hot, but that was due to the media sensation around Harry Potter at the beginning of this decade; it basically was like a sequel. However, I am aware of no case where a sequel has been a "sleeper" relative to the original. We might be looking at an exception: but I am inclined to doubt it.


So, something funny is happening with Caspian. It takes audiences longer than 30 months to forget that they liked a movie. Now, if some similar movie had come out that made Narnia look bad in retrospect, then we might get this pattern. But I cannot think of any such films. If one of the stars had flopped around on Oprah's couch screaming about his/her love for someone half his/her age, then we might get this pattern. I don't recall this happening either!

So, where are all the people who attended and liked Lion??? 3-4 million more people should have been there by now: and that is a lot of people to misplace.


EDIT: Box Office Mojo posts $4.77M for Caspian for Monday. That is about 95% of the ticket sales for Lion on its first Monday, which is (again) a bit odd: we'd expect it to sell about 105-110%. (Winter holidays began a week after Lion's opening Monday, so that is not the issue.)

Usually sequels show a much steeper 2nd weekend drop than do the originals: however, lets assume that Disney's hope that the audience was busy doing something else is true, and that Caspian shows "only" the 50% drop expected of a big blockbuster. It will just clear over $100M by the end of the weekend. That probably will mark the half-way point in ticket sales, which means that Caspian will sell about 60% of Lion's tickets. That is over twice as many "casualties" as expected.

I know that I keep harping on this, but: something very strange is happening here. Strange always troubles me: this is, after all, when Ockham says that we can multiply explanations!

I feel like House with a good case! Does Caspian have Lupus?!?!?

Wow! I'm so excited. I love the book, and the way they've been going with the movies, this one ought to top them all-until Silver Chair.
I'm glad they've got the same actors coming back-that's always a bit of a worry, and I can't wait to see the new ones, lots of awesome new characters to cast.
Counting down the days...

I agree. Just because some critics don't like it, doesn't mean that you don't have to watch it. Who's to say whats good and what isn't?

I know that the critics look at all the stuff we don't, but that just it! Everyone else in the world enjoys the movie for what it is! They don't pick all the fancy details! (besides the fans ;) ) critics can tear apart a movie and tell us what is good and what isn't but the fact of the matter is, do YOU like it? In the end, that's all that really matters. It is nice to see good reviews about something you hope does good. but whether the movies gets 5 stars or 1, it doesn't matter. I go see it because I think it looks good and then I make my opinion of it myself.
some may not like prince caspian, and thats fine. But don't make an opinion on something you heard someone tell you.And don't predict how good a movie is on how many people are attending with box office sales. Experience it yourself. :)

We all can cope with more Ben, believe me.

Also, according to some top sources, they are considering doing "The Silver Chair".

Quite honestly, I was more pleased to see that Jim Rygiel is going to be involved. :) As well as Isis Mussenden. She did a good job.

Despite their listing under the "Dawn Treader" cast, William Moseley and Anna Poppelwell will not be in the film, not even for a short cameo. Anna has stated in an interview that she and William will not be in the next movie.
I can deffinitly deal with more Ben, I mean he is so cute and I think he's a good actor. Is Prince Caspian even in Voyage of the Dawn Treader? I got the book from the library, but I haven't read it yet. I don't understand why they've skipped books though. They skipped The Horse and his Boy and they skipped the Magician's Nephew and those were really good books!

Isn't the Silver Chair the last book to the series? If it is and they can't find a way to end the movie series with Dawn Treader they're gonna have to do the Silver Chair.

Nope, The Last Battle is the last book in the series. Silver Chair is second to last.

As to the movies, none are being skipped. Generally, the books are published in this order:

The Magician’s Nephew
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
The Horse and His Boy
Prince Caspian
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Silver Chair
The Last Battle

However, when the books were originally written/published, it was in this order:

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Prince Caspian
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Silver Chair
The Horse and His Boy
The Magician’s Nephew
The Last Battle

The production team is making the movies in the original order, not the one we know now. So while it seems like they are skipping movies, they are actually just being made in a different order than we're used to. Of course, that may propose a problem if they do decide to make all 7, since the same kids (at least partly, if I'm remembering correctly) are in Dawn Treader, Silver Chair, and Last Battle. What they could do is make the first 5, then go back and do Horse and His Boy and Magician's Nephew, since those two don't really follow with the others as much. We'll just have to wait and see I suppose, but it's such an awful long time to wait!

Just wanted to make people aware that the thread here (http://www.cosforums.com/showthread.php?t=114027&page=4) should still be used for primary discussion of the two Narnia movies that have already been released. I'll leave this one as separate to discuss those upcoming ones exclusively :) Carry on! :D

Well, critics don't need to influence our judgement at all. But bad reviews (or lukewarm reviews) DO influence the box office, and the box office influences further company decisions. I think we are lucky that Dawn Treader has already been announced...

This looks like VERY bad box office, all things considering. I am shocked!! I didn't expect that. But I am DEFINITELY going to see it...

I never listen to the critics either. Just because they say the movie was horrible, doesn't mean it actually was. There are a lot of factors, some that we don't even think about.
I do think that Caspian and LWW were both much better than Harry Potter. The reason the HP movies have done so well is that they were already hugely famous and popular, and you can't really hurt anything HP related. It will always sell. But Narnia, though well-known, is looked upon as a kiddie book. HP has proven itself, but Narnia has not. Yes, there are adults who like Narnia. But people of all ages likes HP.
I, personally, do not like the HP films at all. I like a film that if made from a book, stays true to the book, like Narnia has done. As a book lover, to see a movie with some of the exact same lines is amazing and a wonderful experience. And, I also agree, that the places where they went off the books, really helped to push along the story, as well as the parts they cut. The air-raids in LWW gave a great start, and set the theme of war. The cuts and additions in Caspian were brilliant.


I agree- for some reason the changes they made in PC didn't bother me. I actually thought they enhanced the movie, especially the night raid. In the case of HP; however, I never liked any of the changes/cuts they made. I think they have actually adapted the movies for Narnia better than HP- but in all fairness, it could be that the HP books are simply harder to condense because of their length.

MoD: no problem!

You have described the plot, not the story! That is like describing the palate of a Merlot as very dark, almost purplish red. Have you described something about the wine? Yes. Have you described the palate? Nope! ("Plum-like, with hints of nutmeg and wood" would be a possible description: but "red" is not a flavor!)

For comparison, J.R.R. Tolkien wrote that Lord of the Rings was a story about Death and Immortality. People banding together to destroy the One Ring describes something about the tale: but clearly not the story! So, what describes Lion (or Caspian) in the same way that "Death and Immortality" (or, I would argue, "Preserving/Restoring Natural Order") describes Lord of the Rings?

This is important because all plot and no story will leave a tale feeling "hollow." The great movies of history have not been simply entertaining: but they also have told stories that stuck in the back of people's minds.

Well, the critics think about these factors, even if we don't!

Ultimately, critics of books and films evaluate on: How well a story is told (writing, direction, dialogue, performance, etc.);
coherence of plot;
the "virtue" of the story and themes.By the latter, I mean that there are some stories that critics dislike. For example, the Order movie was not criticized for how well the story was told, but for the story that was told: the isolation story that made the protagonist look like a jerk did not sit well with the critics. For the Narnia films, there has been criticism of both the story that was told and how well it was told.

General audiences tend to judge films based on how entertaining they are. However, do not underestimate the importance of story: no matter how much "fun" a film is visually, if it does not tell anything, then audiences will dislike it. We saw that with the Star Wars prequels.

Book fans tend to judge films by how well they replicate the books: however, as they represent a small minority of the people who read the books, they are not a real factor in how well movies are received. The very faithful Lion was well-received by audiences whereas the very faithful Stone and Chamber were not so well-received; meanwhile, the extensively modified Lord of the Rings was extraordinarily-well received by audiences.

So, if critics say that a movie was bad, then it probably was. This does not say that the film was unenjoyable: and the best critics will tell you that he/she enjoyed a movie but thought that it was really bad. (Siskel & Ebert used to do "Guilty Pleasures" episodes every few years, in which they went through films that they knew were awful but that they could not help but to enjoy!)


But that gets back to my original question. Lion was well-received by audiences even if critics were less enamored by it. (Caspian has been even less-well received: but we know that has little effect on sequels, as people will ignore critics when they have already formed an opinion based on a prior film.) The age-old truism is that a well-received blockbuster will generate a well-attended sequel: and if that is well-received, then the next sequel should be well-received. There are very few exceptions to this rule: but we might be looking at one.

Another general truth is that sequels burn hotter and faster in the box office. There are exceptions: for example, Stone opened extremely hot, but that was due to the media sensation around Harry Potter at the beginning of this decade; it basically was like a sequel. However, I am aware of no case where a sequel has been a "sleeper" relative to the original. We might be looking at an exception: but I am inclined to doubt it.


So, something funny is happening with Caspian. It takes audiences longer than 30 months to forget that they liked a movie. Now, if some similar movie had come out that made Narnia look bad in retrospect, then we might get this pattern. But I cannot think of any such films. If one of the stars had flopped around on Oprah's couch screaming about his/her love for someone half his/her age, then we might get this pattern. I don't recall this happening either!

So, where are all the people who attended and liked Lion??? 3-4 million more people should have been there by now: and that is a lot of people to misplace.


EDIT: Box Office Mojo posts $4.77M for Caspian for Monday. That is about 95% of the ticket sales for Lion on its first Monday, which is (again) a bit odd: we'd expect it to sell about 105-110%. (Winter holidays began a week after Lion's opening Monday, so that is not the issue.)

Usually sequels show a much steeper 2nd weekend drop than do the originals: however, lets assume that Disney's hope that the audience was busy doing something else is true, and that Caspian shows "only" the 50% drop expected of a big blockbuster. It will just clear over $100M by the end of the weekend. That probably will mark the half-way point in ticket sales, which means that Caspian will sell about 60% of Lion's tickets. That is over twice as many "casualties" as expected.

I know that I keep harping on this, but: something very strange is happening here. Strange always troubles me: this is, after all, when Ockham says that we can multiply explanations!

I feel like House with a good case! Does Caspian have Lupus?!?!?

Wimsey, I am just as lost as everyone is as to why Prince Caspian is not doing better at the box office. The movie was fantastic:tu: I know that you and some others thought that LWW was dull- but you have to remember that like Sorcerer's Stone it had the responsibility of introducing the nonreading audience to a whole new world. I anticipated a 70-80 million dollar opening given the warm reception of LWW and the fact that ironman had already been out for 2 weeks to rev up the summer audience.

Some analysts have said that the marketing should not have focused on Caspian. There may be some validity to that argument. The Pevensie children were the main characters in LWW, and are actually the main characters in this sequel as well. Perhaps if they had shown Peter, etc then the audience would be reminded of why they liked Narnia in the first place- just like what HP does with the trio every time. I think Disney promoted the Caspian character and aged him to attract the teen/young adult audience and to help promote the future of the franchise. Unlike HP, the "core" characters in the Narnia series are not the same all the way thru the way the trio are for HP. That may make it difficult for the audience to "bond:" with the characters the way they do with Harry. In the next installment, only Caspian and 2 of the pevensie children are in Narnia.



Fortunately, they already commited to doing Voyage of the Dawn Treader. As for the rest, I just hope for the best.

Fortunately, they already commited to doing Voyage of the Dawn Treader. As for the rest, I just hope for the best.

Yes, "Dawn Treader" is going to be made. They've already signed everyone on board.

"The Silver Chair" has not been officially given the green light, but that's what they hope to do next.

They really want to do all seven, but they would do "The Magician's Nephew" after "Silver Chair", and after that would come "The Horse and His Boy". They want the actors who play the Pevensies to age a little bit during that time period. After that, would come "The Last Battle".

They really want to do all seven, but they would do "The Magician's Nephew" after "Silver Chair", and after that would come "The Horse and His Boy". They want the actors who play the Pevensies to age a little bit during that time period. After that, would come "The Last Battle".

I didn't think of that. Switching those two is an excellent idea, if they really aren't old enough for Horse and his Boy by the time we get around to 2012 or something.
Horse and his Boy ought to be excellent. They could have a lot of fun making a set for Tashbaan, and they could bring a lot of old actors back.

I didn't think of that. Switching those two is an excellent idea, if they really aren't old enough for Horse and his Boy by the time we get around to 2012 or something.
Horse and his Boy ought to be excellent. They could have a lot of fun making a set for Tashbaan, and they could bring a lot of old actors back.

Won't it, though?

"Dawn Treader" was always my favorite, though.

Won't it be awesome to eventually have a movie box set of "The Chronicles of Narnia"? I know I'd get one! :D

Where are they filming 'Dawn Treader'? I read ages ago that they were considering Australia...fingers crossed!

I dunno where they are considering filming "Dawn Treader", but I think they'd have some of it in New Zealand, just for consistency purposes. :)

Won't it, though?

"Dawn Treader" was always my favorite, though.

Won't it be awesome to eventually have a movie box set of "The Chronicles of Narnia"? I know I'd get one! :D

Yeah, I'd get the whole set in a hearbeat too :love: I'd put it right next to my HP movies :tu: I didn't realize they were going to switch the order of The Horse and His Boy and Magician's Nephew. Do you know what the rationale behind that was?

Good movie, I liked the battles better this round. The duel between Peter and the King was sweet and I was hoping that Caspian and him would break out in a little duel too - well what can I say, the duels and battles are the best parts. The little mouse Knight was a humorous diversion. Over all I'd give it a 9.5/10 for entertainment and enjoyment. Less the .5 for trying to squeeze in a last moment romance out of no where that was pretty pointless to me and for sending folk from Narnia to the real world.

Yeah, I'd get the whole set in a hearbeat too :love: I'd put it right next to my HP movies :tu: I didn't realize they were going to switch the order of The Horse and His Boy and Magician's Nephew. Do you know what the rationale behind that was?

Because in "The Horse and His Boy", the Pevensies are full-fledged Kings and Queens of Narnia. The filmmakers want to give the actors some time to age a little bit and mature.

"Dawn Treader" will take a lot of time, and it's safe to assume that "Silver Chair" will as well.

By the time they get to THaHB, William, Anna, Skandar, and Georgie will be old enough to play their respective parts. :)

Now I have not seen or read any of the Narnia stories but is it one long story like LOTR, or is it more of a coming of age tale like HP or is it more akin to James Bond where it's just the same characters but completely different villains and situations each movie?

I know and love the Narnia books from childhood, MoD. :) Narnia is a much more childlike and less sophisticated place than Middle-earth (a much darker place altogether, especially in its pre-LotR phase!) The Narnia books are allegorical in a way that Tolkien's writings are not (Tolkien hated allegory!) The Christian symbolism in Narnia is pretty obvious.

Narnia is also 'lighter' than HP. Rowling, for example, treats the adolescent sexuality of her characters seriously, even though they come across as rather more innocent than their real life counterparts -- this is not something I can ever imagine CS Lewis doing, and, believe me, he doesn't go there. :whistle:

Oh, and in answer to your question, the books are more like James Bond than the HP books (which are a 'coming of age' quest) in that each Narnia book has the same, or related, characters but in different situations and at varying times of Narnian history. The Chronicles are not a long drawn out tale like LotR.

You see, Lord of the Rings was a blessing in a way because it really was one story split into three movies. If you see the first movie and enjoy it, there really is no question you will return to see the second film since Fellowship basically just ends with the Hobbits still trekking on to Mordor and the Hunters off to rescue Merry and Pippin. Fellowship was alot like Empire Strikes Back in that it was quite literally a cliffhanger and that assures people who enjoyed that movie to return. Same for Two Towers. You know the hobbits still have to get to mordor so if you enjoyed the movie, you will no doubt be interested in the last part and LOTR had another blessing in that they filmed them all at once and thus were able to release the films barely a year apart so it was like one continuous LOTR frenzy for two years rather than a stop and go period as it was for most other films like Star Wars and Potter.

Great analysis, MoD. :tu: New Line really knew what they were doing with those films. :agree: For which they have my undying gratitude. :love:

Now, Star Wars I think is unique and shouldn't be treated as an ordinary movie since Star Wars sort of defined the summer blockbuster. You know, you just have to say there's a new Star Wars movie coming out and people will rush to see it, no matter what the reviews are.

Very true. I'm not a SW fan and even my interest gets piqued! Same with Indiana Jones, of course. :D

I think there requires three nessesary elements for people to want to see more of a particular franchise:

1. The first movie had to be more than just a good movie. It had to really blow them away and pull them into the world of the film and truly connect them with the characters.

2. It needs to have some sort of loose end even if it's a complete film and can stand on it's own. Even Star Wars which worked really well as a stand alone one off film had Darth Vader escaping at the end. People need to be able to logically piece together why there needs to be a sequel. "Oh, right. That one villain escaped at the end!"

3. The sequel needs to continue the story in some way. Rehashes rarely work. The sequel needs to further develop the characters and the story and new elements need to be introduced at the same time. The marketing (trailers, posters) needs to reflect these things and promise people this.

Brilliant. Couldn't agree more.

You have to admit though...it'd be damn interesting to watch Tolkien and Lewis debate how and why each of their adaptations fared with the modern audience. :p

I would love to overhear that conversation. :lol:

I fancy that Lewis would be the one who would be more open and flexible about adaptations of his books. Tolkien was an incredible perfectionist. There are things in Jackson's films that would have truly set his teeth on edge, I'm sure! :whistle: But I also like to think that at the same time he would have been rather chuffed that his Middle-earth had been so splendidly realised. :)

I like to imagine the two good Professors (they became estranged later on in life :( ) enjoying a good pint together, chatting comfortably about old times and the wonderful tales they told, which have delighted millions, in the celestial version of The Green Dragon ... or The Bird and Baby.

Caspian doesn't open here in the UK until next month. Personally I really liked the first Narnia film.

But the best adaptation of TLTWATW I've ever seen was the Royal Shakespeare Company's fabulous stage production of a few years ago. Very faithful to Lewis's story and themes, and with gorgeous special effects! I think Lewis would have loved it. :)

Because in "The Horse and His Boy", the Pevensies are full-fledged Kings and Queens of Narnia. The filmmakers want to give the actors some time to age a little bit and mature.

"Dawn Treader" will take a lot of time, and it's safe to assume that "Silver Chair" will as well.

By the time they get to THaHB, William, Anna, Skandar, and Georgie will be old enough to play their respective parts. :)

I see- I thought in that book they only make brief cameos but it would be great if they changed the movie a bit to include all 4. When they interviewed William and Anna, both said these would be their last Narnia movies. Skandar apparently is planning to become a doctor and is set to start medical school in Sept 2010 after VDT wraps up. Here's hoping the movies are as successful as HP and they are all willing to come back!:)

I dunno where they are considering filming "Dawn Treader", but I think they'd have some of it in New Zealand, just for consistency purposes. :)

I read on narniaweb they are starting preproduction in Mexico for VDT in Oct. I'm not sure why they are changing locales, but maybe they will film in NZ too. Perhaps they are trying to find more "exotic" locations since they basically leave Narnia in VDT.

Caspian made $3.2M on Tuesday. That is actually less than Lion did on its 5th day, and only 75% of the ticket sales. Our patient continues to perplex!

Who's to say whats good and what isn't? If that is true, then there is no objective measure of "quality" in any art: and I think that a lot of people (say, the profs in your literature and cinema courses) would vehemently disagree with that! :cool: Remember, the people who make these statements study film: that counts for something.
And don't predict how good a movie is on how many people are attending with box office sales. Experience it yourself. :)Hmmm, this is sort of backwards: one would predict ticket sales based on anticipation, and infer anticipation from ticket sales, correct?

We should clarify four distinct concepts that I see being confounded here: Acclaim: i.e., how students of cinema (critics) judge a film;
Anticipation: how interested potential audiences are in buying tickets to see a film;
Appeal: how much audiences enjoy a film;
Success: how many tickets a movie sells.
#1 is based on how well a film presents a story, plot(s) and theme(s), although enjoyability plays some role too.
#2 usually is based on advanced promotion (catchy trailers), although critical reviews are very important here; however, for sequels what really is important is the appeal and success of the prior film: once people have sampled the product, they have made up their minds.
#3 is simply how much the people who saw a film liked it. This often is very similar to #1: for example, the appeal and acclaim for the first four Harry Potter movies and the Lord of the Rings movies were very similar; however, Lion and Order are two movies that had greater appeal than acclaim.
#4 is simply how many people saw the film: because films have such runs these days, this has become almost identical with #2.

So, Phantom Menace was highly-anticipated and highly-successful: but it was poorly acclaimed, and poorly appreciated. As a result, Attack of the Clones was much less highly anticipated and much less highly successful.

And this leads us back to our patient. Lion was very successful, selling approximately 45 million tickets in N. America. Lion also was (by the best metrics we can find) fairly appealing, getting 83% positive marks. This means that there should be about 38 million people in N. American interested in seeing the film. Now, Caspian evidently is not as appealing or acclaimed as Lion: but, again, that should not matter, as people who liked Lion will disregard critics and friends because they anticipate liking Narnia movies.

However, unless something unprecedented happens, Caspian will sell under 30 million tickets.

So, have people forgotten about Narnia? This seems implausible: Lion is still in the top-100 at Netflix rentals, and has been a fixture there for the last 2 years. People stilll want to watch lion, it seems.

Do people need a cliff-hanger? Well, obviously not: very few of the successful sequels built upon any "loose threads", and some of the most spectacular failures were among those that did.

Do C.S. Lewis fans care less for Caspian than Lion? Well, possibly: but they represent a tiny fraction of the movie-going audience: they could all stay home and things would not be much different.

Hmmm: I'd page Dr. House, but would he survive three posts here without getting banned? :cool:


Wimsey, I am just as lost as everyone is as to why Prince Caspian is not doing better at the box office. The movie was fantastic:tu: I know that you and some others thought that LWW was dull- but you have to remember that like Sorcerer's Stone it had the responsibility of introducing the nonreading audience to a whole new world.Ah, but the fact that I found Lion dull and uninteresting is of little relevance here: we know why I and the approximately 17% of Lion's audience like me are not returning! The movie seems headed to lose another 20% somehow!
Some analysts have said that the marketing should not have focused on Caspian.Possibly. However, the real draw probably is not the children, but Aslan. He seemed to be marketed.

Moreover, this gets back to anticipation. Marketing is huge for generating anticipation for movie #1. However, for movie #2, it simply is not that important: studios invest far less money into promoting sequels for just this reason. People are going to return because the liked the last film, and are expecting to see something generally similar. (As Narnia tales are not particularly character driven, my guess is that the characters left little impact on the audience: except, of course, for the talking Lion: that stands out!)

Still, good try!

[Hugh Laurie sounding American]NEXT![/off] p:

Fortunately, they already commited to doing Voyage of the Dawn Treader. As for the rest, I just hope for the best.New Line was committed to Amber Spyglass, too, and everyone was signed on board. However, they yanked the plug on it (just before WB yanked the plug on NL). "Committed" does not mean much in Hollywood, and all of the contracts carry language for canceling a project. Ultimately, it depends on whether the suits at Disney think that they can Recapture the Glory. Given that Hollywood usually waits one film too long to give up, I bet that they will run Dawn Treader out there: but expect a major retooling.

Caspian made $3.2M on Tuesday. That is actually less than Lion did on its 5th day, and only 75% of the ticket sales. Our patient continues to perplex!

If that is true, then there is no objective measure of "quality" in any art: and I think that a lot of people (say, the profs in your literature and cinema courses) would vehemently disagree with that! :cool: Remember, the people who make these statements study film: that counts for something.
Hmmm, this is sort of backwards: one would predict ticket sales based on anticipation, and infer anticipation from ticket sales, correct?

We should clarify four distinct concepts that I see being confounded here: Acclaim: i.e., how students of cinema (critics) judge a film;
Anticipation: how interested potential audiences are in buying tickets to see a film;
Appeal: how much audiences enjoy a film;
Success: how many tickets a movie sells.
#1 is based on how well a film presents a story, plot(s) and theme(s), although enjoyability plays some role too.
#2 usually is based on advanced promotion (catchy trailers), although critical reviews are very important here; however, for sequels what really is important is the appeal and success of the prior film: once people have sampled the product, they have made up their minds.
#3 is simply how much the people who saw a film liked it. This often is very similar to #1: for example, the appeal and acclaim for the first four Harry Potter movies and the Lord of the Rings movies were very similar; however, Lion and Order are two movies that had greater appeal than acclaim.
#4 is simply how many people saw the film: because films have such runs these days, this has become almost identical with #2.

So, Phantom Menace was highly-anticipated and highly-successful: but it was poorly acclaimed, and poorly appreciated. As a result, Attack of the Clones was much less highly anticipated and much less highly successful.

And this leads us back to our patient. Lion was very successful, selling approximately 45 million tickets in N. America. Lion also was (by the best metrics we can find) fairly appealing, getting 83% positive marks. This means that there should be about 38 million people in N. American interested in seeing the film. Now, Caspian evidently is not as appealing or acclaimed as Lion: but, again, that should not matter, as people who liked Lion will disregard critics and friends because they anticipate liking Narnia movies.

However, unless something unprecedented happens, Caspian will sell under 30 million tickets.

So, have people forgotten about Narnia? This seems implausible: Lion is still in the top-100 at Netflix rentals, and has been a fixture there for the last 2 years. People stilll want to watch lion, it seems.

Do people need a cliff-hanger? Well, obviously not: very few of the successful sequels built upon any "loose threads", and some of the most spectacular failures were among those that did.

Do C.S. Lewis fans care less for Caspian than Lion? Well, possibly: but they represent a tiny fraction of the movie-going audience: they could all stay home and things would not be much different.

Hmmm: I'd page Dr. House, but would he survive three posts here without getting banned? :cool:


Ah, but the fact that I found Lion dull and uninteresting is of little relevance here: we know why I and the approximately 17% of Lion's audience like me are not returning! The movie seems headed to lose another 20% somehow!
Possibly. However, the real draw probably is not the children, but Aslan. He seemed to be marketed.

Moreover, this gets back to anticipation. Marketing is huge for generating anticipation for movie #1. However, for movie #2, it simply is not that important: studios invest far less money into promoting sequels for just this reason. People are going to return because the liked the last film, and are expecting to see something generally similar. (As Narnia tales are not particularly character driven, my guess is that the characters left little impact on the audience: except, of course, for the talking Lion: that stands out!)

Still, good try!

[Hugh Laurie sounding American]NEXT![/off] p:

New Line was committed to Amber Spyglass, too, and everyone was signed on board. However, they yanked the plug on it (just before WB yanked the plug on NL). "Committed" does not mean much in Hollywood, and all of the contracts carry language for canceling a project. Ultimately, it depends on whether the suits at Disney think that they can Recapture the Glory. Given that Hollywood usually waits one film too long to give up, I bet that they will run Dawn Treader out there: but expect a major retooling.

Voyage of the Dawn Treader is scheduled to begin preproduction in Oct. I agree that they may retool it to cut down costs if Prince Caspian does not perform up to their expectations financially.

As for why PC only made 3 million yesterday- again why it's not performing better is still a mystery to me. It definitely had a lot of hype and anticipation.

However, most sequels do not outdistance their predecessors. Empire Strikes Back did not do better than the original star wars, and for HP, Sorcerer's Stone is still the highest grossing of all the HP films. CoS did not outdo Sorcerer's stone. So perhaps we are expecting too much from PC.
It may also be that not as many people liked the LWW movie as originally thought. It was targeted primarily to the 5-12 year old audience so perhaps adults lost interest and did not bother to give PC a chance -thinking it was solely for kids. Conversely, the PC marketing may have looked too violent and dark for parents to bring their younger children. Thus, PC may have lost on both demographics.

Nevertheless, PC was a great movie and word of mouth has been good from people I have talked to. I'm hoping VDT's numbers will be higher because of that and continue the franchise like HP:tu:

You also have to consider, "Prince Caspian" was one of the least-liked books in the series. "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" is one of the most popular, along with "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe". So I think that might be a factor in all of this. :)

You also have to consider, "Prince Caspian" was one of the least-liked books in the series. "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" is one of the most popular, along with "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe". So I think that might be a factor in all of this. :)

I've read in several places that Prince Caspian is one of the least liked books in the series too. That actually surprised me because it was one of my favorites:):) When I read it for the first time long ago I remember how much I enjoyed the entire "what happened to the narnia we left behind" mystery the 4 kids go thru, the introduction of Caspian, and the entire theme/journey of faith. I liked the evolution of Edmund's character and the duel too:)

Well, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it crosses 200mil in the US. I know it's a longshot for it to capture the 291mil of the original, but hopefully Disney will be satisfied enough with 200mil that they won't cause budget cuts for VDT!

Dawn Treader was always one of my favourites. I loved all of the different islands and I can't wait to see who they cast as Eustace.

Dawn Treader was always one of my favourites. I loved all of the different islands and I can't wait to see who they cast as Eustace.

Ah, that will be a challenge! :)
Eustace will be a fascinating character to see brought to life - someone who must first be so easily hated, and then have a sudden, major life event occur that changes him entirely for the better - whoever they cast is really going to have to know how to ACT.

On another side note, just thinking back about it now, I really did love how they did Reepicheep. I have two favorites in the series - him and Edmund - and so I'm glad they did him so much justice and gave him so many lines! :)

Oh, also, according to the official Prince Caspian website (http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/narnia/), they are planning on the next movie being filmed in New Zealand.

Ah, that will be a challenge! :)
Eustace will be a fascinating character to see brought to life - someone who must first be so easily hated, and then have a sudden, major life event occur that changes him entirely for the better - whoever they cast is really going to have to know how to ACT.

On another side note, just thinking back about it now, I really did love how they did Reepicheep. I have two favorites in the series - him and Edmund - and so I'm glad they did him so much justice and gave him so many lines! :)

Oh, also, according to the official Prince Caspian website (http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/narnia/), they are planning on the next movie being filmed in New Zealand.


Yes, I am looking forward to Eustace as well- but actually his character reminds me a lot of Edmund- initially unlikeable, difficult, selfish, then redeems himself and matures into a noble, self-sacrificing hero.

I thought the producers did a great job with Edmund's character in PC and I thought Skandar's potrayal of him was just perfect! Now, if only PC would do better at the box office, especially with Indy IV coming in this weekend!:whistle:

Yes, I am looking forward to Eustace as well- but actually his character reminds me a lot of Edmund- initially unlikeable, difficult, selfish, then redeems himself and matures into a noble, self-sacrificing hero.

I thought the producers did a great job with Edmund's character in PC and I thought Skandar's potrayal of him was just perfect! Now, if only PC would do better at the box office, especially with Indy IV coming in this weekend!:whistle:
I agree, Skandar's portrayal of Edmund was great.

I thought PC was doing well at the box office on the first weekend. Has this changed?

Truth to tell, though, I liked the movie without being overly impressed with it. Ben Barnes is good-looking but lacks substance (don't stone me, ladies!) and they made him rather a fool, didn't they? The disaster at the castle was mostly his fault, with his wasting time freeing old Cornelius and confronting Miraz and his wife instead of opening the gates and keeping them open. Peter doesn't look like he has the makings of a "High King", just as well it's his last trip to Narnia. :shrug:

We'll have to see how Eustace does. Who'll play him, do we know yet?

I agree, Skandar's portrayal of Edmund was great.

I thought PC was doing well at the box office on the first weekend. Has this changed?

Truth to tell, though, I liked the movie without being overly impressed with it. Ben Barnes is good-looking but lacks substance (don't stone me, ladies!) and they made him rather a fool, didn't they? The disaster at the castle was mostly his fault, with his wasting time freeing old Cornelius and confronting Miraz and his wife instead of opening the gates and keeping them open. Peter doesn't look like he has the makings of a "High King", just as well it's his last trip to Narnia. :shrug:

We'll have to see how Eustace does. Who'll play him, do we know yet?

I don't think they've cast Eustace yet. From what I read on narniaweb, they are scheduled to start pre-production on VODT in Oct.

As for Ben Barnes, I thought he did a decent job- but I agree they did not portray him as positively as one would have expected. I saw the movie with some people who did not read the book, and they all commented that "Prince Caspian didn't really do anything... it was all Peter !:)" I wasn't a huge fan of the way they depicted Peter as well since it was so different from the book, but his character did redeem himself in the end.
Edmund was by far my favorite :)

In terms of boxoffice, PC was #1 at the boxoffice last weekend, but was still considered "disappointing" according to most news articles (www.boxofficemojo.com, etc)
because it only took in 55 million. For any other movie that probably would have been considered a good haul, but most were predicting an opening of 80 million at the very least because 1) the positive reception of LWW- which itself opened with 65 million on a Dec weekend 2) PC was released on a "summer" weekend which traditionally posts higher numbers than Dec releases 3) it had no other competition since Iron man had already been out for 2 weeks 4) expectations were even higher since Ironman opened with 98 million

LWW final US tally was around 291 million. It looks bleak that PC will be able to surpass that as most had anticipated. Then again, PC is still a sequel so perhaps it was a bit unrealistic that it would perform as well as LWW. There are also the international numbers to consider.
I just hope that whatever the final numbers are for PC, it will be enough to greenlight The Silver Chair and not cause budget cuts as many on narnia web are concerned about.

I thought PC was doing well at the box office on the first weekend. Has this changed?Quite the opposite: $55M is a disastrous opening weekend for the sequel of a movie that made nearly $300M. To elaborate upon what Phoenix88 wrote, sequels are supposed to sell more tickets early than did their predecessors (although fewer in the long haul), but Caspian sold only about 80% of Lion's tickets. Disney expected at $80+M and they hoped for $100+M. Business is all about how well you do relative to expectation: so, as far as Disney shareholders are concerned, Caspian basically made negative 25 million dollars on its opening weekend. And we all know how Disney shareholders respond to negative dollars.....

And then it got worse!

Yes, every studio dreams of another Titanic: but they want comparisons to the movie, not the actual ship! Early estimates for the three day weekend are in: and Caspian is dropping like a rock. The estimated take (final numbers will come out on Tuesday: the weekend continues for one more day in the States due to holiday) is only $23M, less than one quarter of what Indy 4 sold, and less than $3M more than the three week old Iron Man managed.

That brings the ten day total up to $91M: i.e., just $10M more than Disney expected to make in the opening weekend, and $10M less than Disney hoped to make in the opening weekend.

The 60% decrease from the first weekend nearly equals that of Prisoner's 63% decrease from its first weekend. However, that is the only way in which the comparison to Prisoner is favorable! In contrast, Prisoner: had already sold 19.8M tickets (which would be about $140M today); Caspian has sold about 9.7M tickets ($68M), and has still sold fewer tickets than Prisoner sold on its first weekend;
as a direct corollary, Prisoner still sold 5.6M tickets on its second weekend, whereas Caspian looks like it will sell only 3.3M tickets;
was the third film with the two prior films having only about 80% appeal each, whereas Caspian is only a 2nd film with the prior having an 85% appeal;
having a 2nd weekend on a graduation weekend whereas Caspian is having a second weekend during a big holiday weekend: Caspian's Sunday really is a second Saturday because of the holiday tomorrow.The last is important: without this, Caspian probably would have had a bigger drop than Prisoner, despite the fact that it had sold so many fewer tickets in the first place.

Now, there will be a smalle "rebound," at least relative to the Prisoner Model because Caspian gets to enjoy one more weekend day on Monday. However, given the usual dynamics of sequels, Caspian will be hard pressed to cross the $200M mark. At this point, $180M might be optimistic.

(And, yes, Caspian is playing outside of North America; however, Disney will not see much of this money as they had to sell the distribution rights within those different countries, and thus they've gotten their $$$ already; as this is a summer film and a very Christian one, the anticipated sales outside of N. America are not too high, so those $$$ probably were not huge.)


What does it mean? Well, it is possible that Disney will pull the plug on Dawn Treader altogether as New Line did to Subtle Knife. However, studios are greedy, and they live in perpetual hope of getting lightening to strike twice. So,here are my early predictions. In the next few months, we'll hear about Adamson and/or Johnson leaving "to do other projects." Dawn Treader loses some of the principals, but do not be surprised if we hear that Lucy and Edward leave "to do other projects," too. (Peter & Susan are out, if I remember rightly: although they are replaced by that Dudley-like character, who was pretty unappealing!) Disney spent $200M on Caspian, and they are not going to come close to recouping that in the theaters; so, expect that the budget will be a bit tighter next time around. Finally, expect the release date to be postponed so that DT is a November or December film: that way, DT will get the holiday bumps that that Lion got.


As for explanations, I have seen it posted that Caspian is one of the least liked of the series. That might be true. However, it is quite irrelevant! With movies, we are talking 10's of millions of people, whereas with book readership for a series like this, we are talking about (at most) 100's of thousands of people. If all the C.S. Lewis fans stayed home, but all the other viewers of Narnia 1 returned, then Caspian would replicating Lion's numbers.

So, we need another explanation. This is a sequel to a very successful, very appealing film that was in theaters only 2.5 years ago. And, as Indy4 just showed, the number of years do not really matter, thanks to rental, TV, etc. Indeed, Lion still is on NetFlix top 100 rentals.

So, where are all the Lion fans? They should think that they want to see this film, too!

:flummoxed:

Quite the opposite: $55M is a disastrous opening weekend for the sequel of a movie that made nearly $300M. To elaborate upon what Phoenix88 wrote, sequels are supposed to sell more tickets early than did their predecessors (although fewer in the long haul), but Caspian sold only about 80% of Lion's tickets. Disney expected at $80+M and they hoped for $100+M. Business is all about how well you do relative to expectation: so, as far as Disney shareholders are concerned, Caspian basically made negative 25 million dollars on its opening weekend. And we all know how Disney shareholders respond to negative dollars.....

And then it got worse!

Yes, every studio dreams of another Titanic: but they want comparisons to the movie, not the actual ship! Early estimates for the three day weekend are in: and Caspian is dropping like a rock. The estimated take (final numbers will come out on Tuesday: the weekend continues for one more day in the States due to holiday) is only $23M, less than one quarter of what Indy 4 sold, and less than $3M more than the three week old Iron Man managed.

That brings the ten day total up to $91M: i.e., just $10M more than Disney expected to make in the opening weekend, and $10M less than Disney hoped to make in the opening weekend.

The 60% decrease from the first weekend nearly equals that of Prisoner's 63% decrease from its first weekend. However, that is the only way in which the comparison to Prisoner is favorable! In contrast, Prisoner: had already sold 19.8M tickets (which would be about $140M today); Caspian has sold about 9.7M tickets ($68M), and has still sold fewer tickets than Prisoner sold on its first weekend;
as a direct corollary, Prisoner still sold 5.6M tickets on its second weekend, whereas Caspian looks like it will sell only 3.3M tickets;
was the third film with the two prior films having only about 80% appeal each, whereas Caspian is only a 2nd film with the prior having an 85% appeal;
having a 2nd weekend on a graduation weekend whereas Caspian is having a second weekend during a big holiday weekend: Caspian's Sunday really is a second Saturday because of the holiday tomorrow.The last is important: without this, Caspian probably would have had a bigger drop than Prisoner, despite the fact that it had sold so many fewer tickets in the first place.

Now, there will be a smalle "rebound," at least relative to the Prisoner Model because Caspian gets to enjoy one more weekend day on Monday. However, given the usual dynamics of sequels, Caspian will be hard pressed to cross the $200M mark. At this point, $180M might be optimistic.

(And, yes, Caspian is playing outside of North America; however, Disney will not see much of this money as they had to sell the distribution rights within those different countries, and thus they've gotten their $$$ already; as this is a summer film and a very Christian one, the anticipated sales outside of N. America are not too high, so those $$$ probably were not huge.)


What does it mean? Well, it is possible that Disney will pull the plug on Dawn Treader altogether as New Line did to Subtle Knife. However, studios are greedy, and they live in perpetual hope of getting lightening to strike twice. So,here are my early predictions. In the next few months, we'll hear about Adamson and/or Johnson leaving "to do other projects." Dawn Treader loses some of the principals, but do not be surprised if we hear that Lucy and Edward leave "to do other projects," too. (Peter & Susan are out, if I remember rightly: although they are replaced by that Dudley-like character, who was pretty unappealing!) Disney spent $200M on Caspian, and they are not going to come close to recouping that in the theaters; so, expect that the budget will be a bit tighter next time around. Finally, expect the release date to be postponed so that DT is a November or December film: that way, DT will get the holiday bumps that that Lion got.


As for explanations, I have seen it posted that Caspian is one of the least liked of the series. That might be true. However, it is quite irrelevant! With movies, we are talking 10's of millions of people, whereas with book readership for a series like this, we are talking about (at most) 100's of thousands of people. If all the C.S. Lewis fans stayed home, but all the other viewers of Narnia 1 returned, then Caspian would replicating Lion's numbers.

So, we need another explanation. This is a sequel to a very successful, very appealing film that was in theaters only 2.5 years ago. And, as Indy4 just showed, the number of years do not really matter, thanks to rental, TV, etc. Indeed, Lion still is on NetFlix top 100 rentals.

So, where are all the Lion fans? They should think that they want to see this film, too!

:flummoxed:

Yes, I agree with you Wimsey. This is a very sad occurrence in terms of Caspian's boxoffice. Many on narnia web are very concerned about the future of the franchise. Most blame the marketing for focusing too much on the caspian character and the "battle scenes" which may have alienated families and younger viewers while still failing to capture the teen/young adult audience. I think they attempted to "age" the story the way HP has. However, that strategy just doesn't work for Narnia as it really is a children's series all the way to the end- with the main characters always being new children. Also, many felt the emphasis should have been on the Pevensie children whom everyone already knew from LWW rather than a brand new character- the way HP focuses on the trio each time. I think that Disney was trying to promote Caspian because he is the title character and is really the lead role in VDT as well. Unfortunately, the plan backfired miserably. However, in all fairness to the marketing team- Narnia in general is difficult to promote because the main characters do change with each book.

23 million for a 2nd weekend is very poor, especially since this is a holiday weekend. LWW made 30million its second weekend- and that was a Dec nonholiday weekend. I doubt now that Caspian will even cross the 200mil mark. With all the new summer releases, I think 160million will even be tough to reach. It's really sad because the movie was actually very good imo- definitely a worthy sequel to the first.

I think the summer release really hurt it- having only 6 days before Indy came out was just too much of a challenge considering they have the same target demographic. Had it been released last Christmas when there was basically no competition it would have fared much better.

Unless VDT does a dramatic turnaround, I fear that Narnia may end up just being a trilogy. It just goes to show what an exceptional series HP is to be able to do all 7 books! As for Adamson leaving- he is already not planning on returning as director for the 3rd film. I think that they are trying to follow in the footsteps of HP- Michael Apted has already been picked to helm VDT.
I am not familiar with that director's work, but hopefully VDT will reboot the series the way Prisoner did.

I agree... this is the sort of film that should go into a November or December slot (basically, either the classical Harry Potter slot, or the classical LotR slot). After several films of the epic/fantasy type have used these slots people are almost conditioned to wait for a film like this as soon as the nights get longer.... and I have noticed this in RL, not just on the web, and with people who aren't obsessed fans. PC simply isn't a summer blockbuster.... it's a winter epic. :)

Problem is, after 2009 the main winter slots will be filled.... DH in 2010 and Hobbit and 'Film2' in 2011 and 2012. That's enough to be getting on with in those years..... Of course, I am assuming that they picked the summer slot this year to stay out of the way of HBP, too......

Not a good situation...

BoM is estimating a $5.6M day for Caspian on Monday, yielding an extremely disappointing $28.6M for the weekend. What is really devastating is that Iron Man made only $3M less (a difference of less than half a million tickets) despite being two weeks older and having already sold nearly 30M tickets! If this were the House episode, then it would be one of the ones where the diagnosis comes after the patient is dead: at this point, I'm thinking $150M tops.

Yes, I agree with you Wimsey. This is a very sad occurrence in terms of Caspian's boxoffice. Many on narnia web are very concerned about the future of the franchise. Most blame the marketing for focusing too much on the caspian character and the "battle scenes" which may have alienated families and younger viewers while still failing to capture the teen/young adult audience.Ah, now we are talking! However....

(imitating Hugh Laurie imitating a Yank)

.... Lion had a lot of action and battles: the movie culminates in a huge battle scene, after all. Moreover, there was a bit of horror in Lion: the White Witch petrifying people would have been especially scary to kids. According to media reports in late 2005/early 2006, Lion got a fair bit of repeat viewing over the winter holiday. The Father Christmas part spurred this, no doubt: however, if battle scenes and horror were keeping audiences away now, then they should have done the same then!

My other qualm with this is that advertising for a sequel does not do much more than let people than the next movie is out.

Still, this does lead me to a hypothesis, which I will outline below. It's a little goofy, but there is something seriously goofy happening here.
I think they attempted to "age" the story the way HP has. However, that strategy just doesn't work for Narnia as it really is a children's series all the way to the end- with the main characters always being new children.That might explain why people who saw Caspian did not like Caspian: but people would have to see the movie to know that.
I think the summer release really hurt it- having only 6 days before Indy came out was just too much of a challenge considering they have the same target demographic. Had it been released last Christmas when there was basically no competition it would have fared much better.
I agree... this is the sort of film that should go into a November or December slot (basically, either the classical Harry Potter slot, or the classical LotR slot).
This is the story of two Mays. In both Mays, a family-oriented film that was the sequel of a big hit. In both Mays, the films came out two weeks after very successful comic-book films. In both Mays, the two films came out the week before Memorial Day weekend, and both Memorial Day weekends saw the release of a slightly more adult big action/adventure film. To complete the similarities, both of the Memorial Day films had huge sales on Memorial Day weekend.

The two action/adventure Memorial Day films: Pirates 3 and Indy 4 (which performed similarly).
The two comic book films: Spidey 3 and Iron Man (which performed similarly).
The two family-oriented films: Shrek the 3rd and Prince Caspian. However, whereas Shrek 3 had $217M after Memorial Day, Caspian has only $97M.

So, why was May OK for Shrek, but not for Caspian? The time was "right" for this sort of picture!
As for Adamson leaving- he is already not planning on returning as director for the 3rd film. I think that they are trying to follow in the footsteps of HP- Michael Apted has already been picked to helm VDT.Ah, well, darn: I would have looked extremely prescient! Still, look for the kids to be recast and other changes.

Problem is, after 2009 the main winter slots will be filled.... DH in 2010 and Hobbit and 'Film2' in 2011 and 2012. That's enough to be getting on with in those years..... Of course, I am assuming that they picked the summer slot this year to stay out of the way of HBP, too...... At this point, I think that HP would have been steering clear of Narnia! :cool: WB has to be a stunned as Disney by Caspian's flop: and they probably are more than a little scared, too.

That being written, there is room for both DT and the other films in late autumn. In 2002, we heard the story that Chamber's box office fell so badly because the parents dropped the kids off to see that and then they went to see The Two Towers. However, this simply could not have been true: Chamber was 4 weeks old by the time Towers came out, and (like all blockbuster sequels) had made 75% of its money by then. If all of those parents seen Towers had dropped kids off to see Chamber, then it would have had resurgent sales! (Either that, or they abandoned the kids at the theater for a month.... :cool:) But the real point here is that a November film and a December film will not compete: the Nov. film will have sold most of its tickets already, especially if it is a sequel.

At any rate, Lion came out 3 weeks after Goblet, but both had nearly identical final box offices in N. America (which is all that Disney or WB cares about). Here again, Goblet had sold over 3/4ths of its tickets before Lion came out, and Goblet was rapidly fading: if Aslan had competition, it was not from a Gryffindor! :p

So, if Dawn Treader comes out in early December of 2010, then Hallows will provide it with little competition: as sequels burn progressively faster, Hallows will be completely out of the picture by then. Similarly, if DT comes out in Nov. 2011, then it will be a non-factor by the time "The Hobbit" comes out, assuming that Jackson & Del Toro shoot for the mid-December slot. (And the less written about the "second" Hobbit film, the better..... :grumble:)

Of course, at this point, I would have to caution that the sacking of the series is entirely possible.

And now... MY HYPOTHESIS.
As I noted above, for sequels of successful (many tickets sold) and appreciated (liked by many ticket buyers) films, the studios know that they do not need to "sell" Film 2: the Film 1 has done that. We can see that with HP: note the lack of trailers or ads for Half-Blood Prince. We saw that with Rings: New Line spent almost no money on ads for King and they issued only one short trailer.

Here is the difference. People will not go to see Half-Blood Prince: they will go to see Harry Potter. They did not go to see At Worlds End: they went to see Pirates of the Caribbean. They did not go to see Return of the King: they went to see Lord of the Rings. They will not go to see The Quantum of Solace: they will go to see James Bond. Each of these franchises has a simple, easily recognized and/or well-known moniker.

"The Chronicles of Narnia" is not a well-known moniker. I would suggest that the advertising, which basically should have said "Lion, Witch & Wardrobe 2: in theaters next week!" failed to say that. Now, I know that Aslan is barely present and I seem to recall that the White Witch is completely absent: however, those were by far that two most iconic characters in the first film, and the ads should have pushed those two. Prince Caspian is completely new, and only people who had read the series (a tiny fraction of a desired movie audience) know that it is the sequel to Lion. The four kids are (and I know that C.S. Lewis fans will hate this, but...) completely and utterly forgettable, with the possible exception of Lucy. (Insofar as they are memorable, I would go so far to state that Edmund and Susan are actually offensive, and I while am sure that the oldest one had a name, I know that it was not "Vanilla Waffle" despite what I remember him being....)

This is as good an explanation as I can offer. There are only two ways of which I can think to have a sequel to a well-liked blockbuster flop. One is for that sequel to be a 3rd or 4th picture, with the 2nd or 3rd unpopular. That did not happen here. The other is that somehow, someway, people did not realize that the sequel was out there.

Well, I loved the PC book, it was one of my favorites [Though I haven't read the last two books yet], I wanted to read the book again, but I don't know what happend to it.

I saw the movie yesterday[Monday], and it was pretty good, I didn't remember the book that much so that may have been part of it, my brother who remembered a lot, was sighing every few minutes..:lol: But I find that it was better then the first one, which to me was shiny and clean...if you get what I am saying :huh:

I do think the whole "love thing" between Suasn and Caspian, was a bit...stupid.
I also remembered Caspain being kind of younger...How old was he suppose to be in the book?
and the actor they got for him was a bit annoying, his accent changed ever five seconds :grumble:
[and he needs to cut his hair]
But if he works on his whole accent thing, and gets a hair cut I think he will be good in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

The dude that is Peter, I couldn't tell at first if he was the same actor from the first movie..lol..I forgot how much long ago that the first one came out.
I personally think they did a much better job on this one. [loved the mouse[and mice]..I can never remember his name..lol..I was so happy when he was still in it..:lol:..]

OMG![I was looking on IMDB]
I forgot about Eustace!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I hated that thing!!!!!!!!!!!
:eeep:

BoM is estimating a $5.6M day for Caspian on Monday, yielding an extremely disappointing $28.6M for the weekend. What is really devastating is that Iron Man made only $3M less (a difference of less than half a million tickets) despite being two weeks older and having already sold nearly 30M tickets! If this were the House episode, then it would be one of the ones where the diagnosis comes after the patient is dead: at this point, I'm thinking $150M tops..

Well Wimsey at least the actuals were slightly higher than the estimates. It looks like PC made 7 million on Mon giving it a 4 day total of around 29 million. It's still not great considering it has been 2 weekends and has yet to cross the 100million mark (which they had anticipated PC earning in just its opening weekend) but I will take whatever good news I can get :)

This is the story of two Mays. In both Mays, a family-oriented film that was the sequel of a big hit. In both Mays, the films came out two weeks after very successful comic-book films. In both Mays, the two films came out the week before Memorial Day weekend, and both Memorial Day weekends saw the release of a slightly more adult big action/adventure film. To complete the similarities, both of the Memorial Day films had huge sales on Memorial Day weekend.

The two action/adventure Memorial Day films: Pirates 3 and Indy 4 (which performed similarly).
The two comic book films: Spidey 3 and Iron Man (which performed similarly).
The two family-oriented films: Shrek the 3rd and Prince Caspian. However, whereas Shrek 3 had $217M after Memorial Day, Caspian has only $97M.

So, why was May OK for Shrek, but not for Caspian? The time was "right" for this sort of picture!]

You're right. Last year we did have a crowded May with Spidey 3, Shrek, and Pirates 3. All had a similar target audience yet still managed to post amazing numbers. I know you have essentially placed PC in the Shrek position based on the release date, but the Shrek brand is just a lot more recognizable than Narnia is at this point. Shrek already had 2 installments ahead of the 3rd one- with the 2nd grossing over 400million. As successful as LWW was, it still did not clear 300million domestically.

I read your hypothesis as to why PC isn't doing as well as expected. At first glance I think you have a valid point. I'll have to think about it some more to try and figure out why PC isn't the blockbuster everyone was anticipating.

At this point, I think that HP would have been steering clear of Narnia! :cool: WB has to be a stunned as Disney by Caspian's flop: and they probably are more than a little scared, too.

Yes, Disney is stunned all right. Here is an article from Disney's CEO discussing PC's disappointing box office.


Speaking at the Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference, Iger said the second installment in the "Narnia" series is not doing as well as the first, nor as well as Disney officials had hoped. Iger pointed out that the movie business is a crowded field, and the marketplace can't always accommodate all the releases that a studio puts out.
"I think there are too many movies being released in the marketplace," Iger said, later adding, "It's a very delicate, very fragile marketplace."
"Prince Caspian" was released May 16 and has made an estimated $146 million in worldwide receipts thus far. But the movie's production costs are estimated at $200 million. In order to turn a profit in theaters alone, "Prince Caspian" would have to make roughly $500 million worldwide when marketing costs are included. The film is expected to have a home video life, however.
Iger says this latest installment is a better film than the first in the series, "The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," which debuted during the 2006 Christmas season. That film went on to make $744.8 million worldwide on a production budget of $180 million.
But the first "Narnia" film benefitted from more favorable scheduling. "Prince Caspian" was sandwiched between two high-profile releases from Viacom
Paramount Pictures unit -- "Iron Man," with $487.8 million in worldwide returns since its May 2 debut, and eagerly awaited "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." The latter film was released Thursday and has made roughly $300 million worldwide thus far. "Prince Caspian" originally was scheduled for a Christmas 2007 release but Disney's partner on the series, Walden Media, had another film debuting in that time frame with Sony Corp.
"The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep." Iger pointed out Disney has cut back on film production and is trying to be more selective. He added the company won't always score a hit every time out.
"It's a good lesson," he said. "It just informs us that much more of what we need to do."

The irony of it all is like Iger said, I actually thought PC was just as good if not better than the first. Most of the people I spoke to who actually saw the movie agree as well.

That being written, there is room for both DT and the other films in late autumn. But the real point here is that a November film and a December film will not compete: the Nov. film will have sold most of its tickets already, especially if it is a sequel. At any rate, Lion came out 3 weeks after Goblet, but both had nearly identical final box offices in N. America (which is all that Disney or WB cares about). Here again, Goblet had sold over 3/4ths of its tickets before Lion came out, and Goblet was rapidly fading: if Aslan had competition, it was not from a Gryffindor! :p

Yes, I agree. If VDT is released in Dec and DH in Nov it shouldn't face too much competition since there's a 3 week gap between the 2.


Of course, at this point, I would have to caution that the sacking of the series is entirely possible.

Yes, unfortunately I fear this may be the case as well based on Iger's comments. I think they will still proceed with VDT since it is already in production but there will likely be budget cuts. The remaining books are definitely in jeopardy of never reaching the screen.:no::no:

Well, I loved the PC book, it was one of my favorites [Though I haven't read the last two books yet], I wanted to read the book again, but I don't know what happend to it.
Funny, I didn't like the book all that much. I thought it was a bit slow in the middle part, and then there was too much action in too few pages. You actually barely see Caspian at all, after the first couple of chapters, he's overshadowed by the Pevensie kids.

I do think the whole "love thing" between Suasn and Caspian, was a bit...stupid.
I also remembered Caspain being kind of younger...How old was he suppose to be in the book?
and the actor they got for him was a bit annoying, his accent changed ever five seconds :grumble:
[and he needs to cut his hair]
The love thing didn't bother me. This, after all, is a Disney movie. :cool:

Yes about Ben Barnes. The actor is 28, the character is supposed to be in his mid-teens - about the same age as Peter or Susan. As to his hair, at least he washed it! Unlike Aragorn in most of LotR and someone I won't name in HP. ;)

The dude that is Peter, I couldn't tell at first if he was the same actor from the first movie..lol..I forgot how much long ago that the first one came out.
I personally think they did a much better job on this one. [loved the mouse[and mice]..I can never remember his name..lol..I was so happy when he was still in it..:lol:..
Really? I didn't think he had changed that much. It's just been a year, hasn't it? Just like in the book? The Mouse is Reepicheep, or something like that (could never remember the spelling) - I also tend to mix up the names of the Black Dwarf and the Red Dwarf, when I don't forget them altogether.

Funny, I didn't like the book all that much. I thought it was a bit slow in the middle part, and then there was too much action in too few pages. You actually barely see Caspian at all, after the first couple of chapters, he's overshadowed by the Pevensie kids.




Really?
hmmm....I really needa to find the book now..lol..
But I did think that Caspian was in the movie more then he was the book..cause when I was watching the movie I was surprised how much Caspian was in it..

The love thing didn't bother me. This, after all, is a Disney movie.

Yes about Ben Barnes. The actor is 28, the character is supposed to be in his mid-teens - about the same age as Peter or Susan. As to his hair, at least he washed it! Unlike Aragorn in most of LotR and someone I won't name in HP.

Yea, I know. Disney always has to make movies love stories [Tuck Everlasting]. But it annoys me...at least they didn't make it like a full blown love stroy..:lol:

He is 28????????
:wow::wow::wow:
At the most I thought he was like 23 :lol:
Yea, thats what I thought..I actually was thinking he was younger..
Well isn't Aragorn suppose to be all rugged looking :lol:
hmmm Hp, now I am wondering..cause we all know the obvious answer..:hmm:


Really? I didn't think he had changed that much. It's just been a year, hasn't it? Just like in the book? The Mouse is Reepicheep, or something like that (could never remember the spelling) - I also tend to mix up the names of the Black Dwarf and the Red Dwarf, when I don't forget them altogether.

Well, in the book, it was a year..but the first movie came out in 2005...if you look at pictures of him then, you can tell, to me his jaw looks really different.

Reepicheep...:love:
I love that little mouse!

I completely forgot about the dwarfs!
imdb I think has got it wrong to, but I am not sure....
I liked the red dwarf..I thought the end was funny [and cute]when he was sad about Lucy leaving :D

I have a random question, which I am sure I would find if I read this thread carefully, but I don't feel like doing that. Is the movie just for the one book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe? Or is it for more than one book? I don't want to watch it until I am sure that I have read all books involved.

The first one that came out in 2005 was The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The one that just came out a few weeks ago was Prince Caspian. Those are the only two out so far. They aren't combining any books, so if you've read those two, you're good.

Well Wimsey at least the actuals were slightly higher than the estimates. It looks like PC made 7 million on Mon giving it a 4 day total of around 29 million. It's still not great considering it has been 2 weekends and has yet to cross the 100million mark (which they had anticipated PC earning in just its opening weekend) but I will take whatever good news I can get :)The overall box office was a little higher than they thought: Indy and Iron-Man also did a little better than first thought. Still, isn't this like learning that your team lost by 150-10 instead of 150-0? :p

I wonder how the "foreign" (non-North American) sales work for Caspian. In a lot of cases, Hollywood distributors simply sell the film rights to other countries for some prenegotiated amount: so, WB or Disney or Paramount makes the same amount regardless of whether the film is a hit or a bust. (They obviously make more if the film is expected to be a hit.) It sounds like Disney might get some proportion of sales instead if the global sales (rather than just N. American ones) will effect whether Disney makes back their investment.

I know you have essentially placed PC in the Shrek position based on the release date, but the Shrek brand is just a lot more recognizable than Narnia is at this point. Shrek already had 2 installments ahead of the 3rd one- with the 2nd grossing over 400million. As successful as LWW was, it still did not clear 300million domestically.No, but LWW did rent very well, and it sold nearly as many tickets as Shrek III. (Lion would have cleared $300M easily at 2007 prices.) Given that LWW (supposedly) was very popular with audiences, I would have thought that there were nearly as many people interested in seeing more Aslan in May 2008 as there were people interested in seeing more Shrek in May 2007. Still, if I am correct, then maybe they are! But your very good point about name-recognition is basically a corollary of this: Shrek turned itself into a one-name instant recognition and Shrek the 3rd obviously was another Shrek film; but "Chronicles of Narnia" is a mouthful, and very possibly not the title that people remember from Dec. 2005!
Yes, Disney is stunned all right. Here is an article from Disney's CEO discussing PC's disappointing box office.The one problem that I have with Iger's suggestion is May 2006. Yes, the economy has gotten worse: but people were expecting that to elevate box offices rather than lower them as people were canceling (or not-making) travel plans, and thus apt to be looking for cheaper "fun" near home. Movies are great for that!
The irony of it all is like Iger said, I actually thought PC was just as good if not better than the first. Most of the people I spoke to who actually saw the movie agree as well.The critics obviously disagree, but that is not relevant when discussing the ticket sales of a sequel. Really, the issue is whether people enjoy the film: and the available data suggest that the people who do see Caspian like it in about the same proportion as they did Lion. The appreciation is there: just not the success and (apparently) anticipation.

(This also shows just how small an effect word-of-mouth actually has: people like Caspian, but they obviously are not persuading even the people who saw and liked Lion to go see it.)
Yes, unfortunately I fear this may be the case as well based on Iger's comments. I think they will still proceed with VDT since it is already in production but there will likely be budget cuts. The remaining books are definitely in jeopardy of never reaching the screen.:no::no:Well, cutting the budget to $0 is just an extreme budget cut! That is essentially what happened to Subtle Knife: they had even saved closing scenes from Golden Compass to use as the opening to SK, so preproduction had begun!

Still, I expect that Disney will just cast a lot of blame (the timing, the actors, etc.) and hope that Dawn Treader recaptures the magic. I do wonder if they will do something to try to make the connection to LWW much more obvious this time around.

Another entertaining fantasy adventure - actually this one is put to movie very well I thought as movies go. Better and more battle scenes, dueling heroes, great characterizations...very little Azlan...all in all a pretty fun time. I'd give this a :tu:

And now... MY HYPOTHESIS.
As I noted above, for sequels of successful (many tickets sold) and appreciated (liked by many ticket buyers) films, the studios know that they do not need to "sell" Film 2: the Film 1 has done that. We can see that with HP: note the lack of trailers or ads for Half-Blood Prince. We saw that with Rings: New Line spent almost no money on ads for King and they issued only one short trailer.

Here is the difference. People will not go to see Half-Blood Prince: they will go to see Harry Potter. They did not go to see At Worlds End: they went to see Pirates of the Caribbean. They did not go to see Return of the King: they went to see Lord of the Rings. They will not go to see The Quantum of Solace: they will go to see James Bond. Each of these franchises has a simple, easily recognized and/or well-known moniker.

"The Chronicles of Narnia" is not a well-known moniker. I would suggest that the advertising, which basically should have said "Lion, Witch & Wardrobe 2: in theaters next week!" failed to say that. Now, I know that Aslan is barely present and I seem to recall that the White Witch is completely absent: however, those were by far that two most iconic characters in the first film, and the ads should have pushed those two. Prince Caspian is completely new, and only people who had read the series (a tiny fraction of a desired movie audience) know that it is the sequel to Lion. The four kids are (and I know that C.S. Lewis fans will hate this, but...) completely and utterly forgettable, with the possible exception of Lucy. (Insofar as they are memorable, I would go so far to state that Edmund and Susan are actually offensive, and I while am sure that the oldest one had a name, I know that it was not "Vanilla Waffle" despite what I remember him being....)

This is as good an explanation as I can offer. There are only two ways of which I can think to have a sequel to a well-liked blockbuster flop. One is for that sequel to be a 3rd or 4th picture, with the 2nd or 3rd unpopular. That did not happen here. The other is that somehow, someway, people did not realize that the sequel was out there.

I believe you are right Wimsey. Many on narniaweb are actively discussing why PC isn't doing well at the boxoffice. It is a bit like House isn't it? :lol:
People including Disney have cited various reasons. It's unfortunate because as you can see based on the posts here, PC was actually a great movie- perhaps even better than the first.


I think PC's disappointing returns are multifactorial.

1.) I agree that the branding for Narnia just isn't that recognizable yet. You are right in that when people go see HP- they are not going to watch HBP per se- they are going to see Harry Potter. Same went for LoTR and any of the other superhero movies. This comes down to the marketing issue. Many who have not read the books didn't realize that PC was a narnia movie or what connection if any it had to lww which segues into the next point-

2.) The advertising focused too much on the Prince Caspian character. Looking back I can understand Disney's rationale since this was their title character and figures prominently in the next book. However, by emphasizing this brand new character they failed to remind the audience who turned out for lww of any connection to the previous film. Only a few of the posters had aslan on them- and when they did it was just on the side. There were none of the pevensie kids. I know you don't care for them but the 4 children are what most of the moviegoers related to. They couldn't highlight the white witch because honestly she just has a cameo in PC and is not in the next book as well. I spoke to some of my friends who have never read narnia and they weren't even aware that the 4 kids were back. I think they needed to either feature the 4 kids and/or aslan with caspian as an addition on the side. However, I can't knock Disney too much on this since hindsight is always 20/20 and from a marketing standpoint I can see where they were coming from.

3.) The previews emphasized the darker, more mature tone of the story and featured mostly battle scenes. They kept reusing the tagline "you'll find that narnia is much more savage than you remember" or something like that.
I think this was Disney's attempt to widen the demographic by appealing to the teen/young adult audience. The problem is that they alienated the younger viewers/parents in the process. Many parents had the impression that this movie was too violent for their kids. In reality, PC was still really a movie for kids- they had the animal characters (talking rat, etc.) which would have been very endearing to children but were never showcased in the preview. As for the teens, I think that the previews had too much of a lotr type feel- so they never bothered to try out the movie- especially since there were so many other options at the multiplex to see. This brings me to the last point which may have been the most important-

4.) The summer release date- there was just too much competition. Between Ironman's holdovers (many I know saw it more than once) and then just 6 days before Indy's release PC just didn't stand a chance. It only had that 1 weekend all to itself. As Iger said, the field was just too crowded- and unlike Shrek, Narnia isn't as recognizable a brand to distinguish itself as a must see.
LWW really benefited from the holiday release. It was marketed as a feel good Christmas movie- the previews, etc. emphasized the magical/adventure aspects of the story. It had 2 holiday weekends almost immediately after its release to boost its numbers and really didn't face much competition against King Kong. With PC, Indy just wiped out any chance it had to have "legs". Also, PC was not released in late summer the way HP OOTP was. The kids aren't even out of school yet. For LWW, many schools actually had field trip where the kids were brought to see the movie.

Well, for anyone who hasn't seen PC- please do! It's really a very entertaining movie and needs some help in the boxoffice to continue the franchise! That goes for you too Wimsey :)

The first one that came out in 2005 was The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The one that just came out a few weeks ago was Prince Caspian. Those are the only two out so far. They aren't combining any books, so if you've read those two, you're good.

Thanks!

Really?
hmmm....I really needa to find the book now..lol..
But I did think that Caspian was in the movie more then he was the book..cause when I was watching the movie I was surprised how much Caspian was in it..



Yea, I know. Disney always has to make movies love stories [Tuck Everlasting]. But it annoys me...at least they didn't make it like a full blown love stroy..:lol:

He is 28????????
:wow::wow::wow:
At the most I thought he was like 23 :lol:
Yea, thats what I thought..I actually was thinking he was younger..
Well isn't Aragorn suppose to be all rugged looking :lol:
hmmm Hp, now I am wondering..cause we all know the obvious answer..:hmm:




Well, in the book, it was a year..but the first movie came out in 2005...if you look at pictures of him then, you can tell, to me his jaw looks really different.

Reepicheep...:love:
I love that little mouse!

I completely forgot about the dwarfs!
imdb I think has got it wrong to, but I am not sure....
I liked the red dwarf..I thought the end was funny [and cute]when he was sad about Lucy leaving :D

I actually really liked the book as well- it was one of my favorites in the series. I enjoyed the whole mystery of "where are we" when the kids first go back to narnia and the background of what happened while they were gone. I was surprised that most people apparently didn't care for the book- thinking it was a bit slow and boring.


The movie actually made a lot of changes from the book. I reread the book recently right after I saw the movie. They aged Caspian- he is supposed to be around the same age as Peter if not younger- and definitely included him more in the movie. Ben barnes who plays caspian is 26. In the book, you have the dwarf telling the kids about the younger Caspian in flashback- you don't actually meet Caspian until halfway thru the book. Ironically enough, I actually didn't mind the changes they made because cinematically it made more sense. For HP, it usually makes me upset when they change the book. In this case; however, I thought the changes enhanced the movie. I don't think the viewers who hadn't read the book would want to see a movie that was mostly walking and talking- which was essentially the first part of the book. The night raid and the white witch scene were great addition imo.
As for the romance, I knew it was coming so I was pleasantly surprised that it was so abbreviated. It actually didn't bother me as much as I thought it would.

Apparently they arent too happy wiht how the film is doing moneywise,All I am going to say is that if it had included the HBP trailer it might have improved a bit.I know a lot of nutters,including me :whistle: who would have gone a s fast as possible to see the film just because of the trailer.Who knows maybe it would have made a difference...or not.I dont think there are as many nutters out there who would go to a film just because of the HBP trailer.

Another entertaining fantasy adventure - actually this one is put to movie very well I thought as movies go. Better and more battle scenes, dueling heroes, great characterizations...very little Azlan...all in all a pretty fun time. I'd give this a :tu:

I really enjoyed the movie too! I thought it was a great adaptation of the book, even improved on a lot of the scenes imo (i.e. the white witch scene, the night raid,etc.) The action sequences and duel in the end were just fantastic! Edmund actually fought with 2 swords for a short while in the battle- reminded me a bit of Anakin actually in Attack of the Clones :lol: I just wish it was doing better in the boxoffice.

I really enjoyed the movie too! I thought it was a great adaptation of the book, even improved on a lot of the scenes imo (i.e. the white witch scene, the night raid,etc.) The action sequences and duel in the end were just fantastic! Edmund actually fought with 2 swords for a short while in the battle- reminded me a bit of Anakin actually in Attack of the Clones :lol: I just wish it was doing better in the boxoffice.
I agree, the changes made were for the better. I wish they hadn't made Caspian such an idiot sometimes, though. Some of the decisions he made... :rolleyes:

I didn't mind the addition of the "love interest" - it was just some meaningful looks and one kiss, after all. :cool: And the White Witch cameo appearance was a great idea.

Ben Barnes was really too old for the role, though. I know he's a hunk and has become an instant heartthrob, but he's still too old for Caspian. By the time the Voyage of the Dawn Treader comes out, he'll be 30!! - I did read in one review that the actor is 28 now. It might have been the NYTimes review, or the NY Daily News'.

Too bad it didn't turn out to be a blockbuster as was hoped. It's doing OK though. I don't think the Disney people lost money on it, just didn't make as much as they'd thought they would. :shrug:

I think it did fine, considering it came out on graduation weekend, a week before Indy, and smack in the middle of finals(for some people)

I really enjoyed the movie too! I thought it was a great adaptation of the book, even improved on a lot of the scenes imo (i.e. the white witch scene, the night raid,etc.) The action sequences and duel in the end were just fantastic! Edmund actually fought with 2 swords for a short while in the battle- reminded me a bit of Anakin actually in Attack of the Clones :lol: I just wish it was doing better in the boxoffice.

Yup me too, except that Edmund retained both his arms :lol:.

:lol:I agree, the changes made were for the better. I wish they hadn't made Caspian such an idiot sometimes, though. Some of the decisions he made... :rolleyes:

I didn't mind the addition of the "love interest" - it was just some meaningful looks and one kiss, after all. :cool: And the White Witch cameo appearance was a great idea.

Ben Barnes was really too old for the role, though. I know he's a hunk and has become an instant heartthrob, but he's still too old for Caspian. By the time the Voyage of the Dawn Treader comes out, he'll be 30!! - I did read in one review that the actor is 28 now. It might have been the NYTimes review, or the NY Daily News'.

Too bad it didn't turn out to be a blockbuster as was hoped. It's doing OK though. I don't think the Disney people lost money on it, just didn't make as much as they'd thought they would. :shrug:


Yes I agree- they definitely aged the Caspian character. I was expecting him to be a teenager around the same age if not younger than Peter. The way he looked in this movie was how I pictured him for Voyage of the Dawn Treader actually. I think the producers did that to try and attract an older audience than LWW and expand the demographic. As for Caspian not making the best decisions- I agree- they took some liberties on that too- especially with the night raid and white witch scene. Caspian was actually not in the book as much as he was in the movie, so I think they were trying to give him more of a role. I saw the movie with people who hadn't read the book, and they all said- why is this movie called Prince Caspian when Peter and Edmund are the ones doing everything? :lol:

I know it's not a blockbuster like HP, but hopefully it does well enough to continue making the rest of the books:tu:

Yup me too, except that Edmund retained both his arms :lol:.


You're right:lol: I completely forgot about that :lol:

No news is good news, they say. So, here is some news. The Friday estimates put Caspian below Iron Man, at under $3.5M.

On the issue of what went wrong, we might look out on places like CNN Entertainment or Entertainment Weekly. In winter 2003, there was an article about a study that WB commissioned to find out why the HP's box office dropped so much from Stone to Chamber. Full information was not divulged, of course, but it was stated that people who did not return to Chamber after seeing Stone did not come back because Stone was too long, too slow, with too many irrelevant scenes, etc. Disney will almost certainly commission studies to see why Prince flopped: and it is possible that information will be leaked as it was for HP.

I believe you are right Wimsey. Why, my blushes! :blush: I should be interested to learn what they think of my hypothesis there. That being written, it seems that people have come up with similar hypotheses. I think that the first three of your ideas fit in with the "Oh, I didn't know it was another Lion, Witch & Wardrobe" movie. However, I simply do not think that the May hypothesis works: last May had three $300+M blockbusters, and for this idea to work, Shrek, Spidey or Pirates should have flopped last year. Indeed, with the poorer economy, people should be looking for cheap forms of entertainment more than they were last year: and movies are that.

Of course, Lion definitely benefited from its December release. However, the difference should be less than the difference between Goblet (which had Thansgiving AND winter holiday boosts) and Order (which missed all of the summer boosts). We are missing ten times as many people (20M vs. 2M people), and once you start differing by factors of ten, then there must be something bigger to blame! Spidey, Shrek and Pirates all found those 20M in May; so, it's not May, but something about Narnia.

Also, I do not think that it was the 4 children that pulled the movie goers. What unites the blockbusters is the fantastic: and here that was Aslan, the White Witch, and the cinematic spectacle. There are dozens of movies giving character-driven stories focused on characters much better developed than these kids such as Dan Radcliffe's side projects: yet none of them are anywhere near as successful or appealing as Lion was. The kids represent the mundane: and although the mundane is an important part of such a story, the mundane also is the most replaceable part. C.S. Lewis himself did so!

Of course, Caspian himself borders on the mundane: and if you must emphasize the mundane, then perhaps known mundane would be better. Better still to emphasize the known and the fantastic, however!
3.) The previews emphasized the darker, more mature tone of the story and featured mostly battle scenes. They kept reusing the tagline "you'll find that narnia is much more savage than you remember" or something like that.But was that a bad thing? Yes, it is darker: but it accomplishes two things. One, it emphasize "Narnia": and that is the franchise. Two, it establishes that there is a new problem. The last film started with a problem (a savage, cold, and cruel world) and solved it; this film needs a new problem. Otherwise, why would anyone (the kids in the story or the ticket-buyers in Mundania) go back?

So, the advertisements had to emphasize that all is not right and that there is a problem to be solved: all adverts for these types of films do. It had to tell people that it was Narnia. The question is, does saying "it's Narnia" tell people that it is Narnia?

Had I made the adverts, then I would have used parts of the first film (with the wardrobe and the old professor says that they might be able to go back to Narnia, plus some catchy reminder scenes of Aslan and the White Witch). Then I would have put in the new battle scenes and something stating that there is a new problem. Moreover, if I recall, part of the problem is that someone is trying to bring back the White Witch, and Aslan has gone AWOL again.
That goes for you too Wimsey :)heh, well, we probably won't be seeing too many films in theaters for a while: we used our night out for Indy! And, of course, my wife hated Lion..... Still, our home surround sound is pretty sweet: maybe we will NetFlix it!

Apparently they arent too happy wiht how the film is doing moneywise,All I am going to say is that if it had included the HBP trailer it might have improved a bit..... I dont think there are as many nutters out there who would go to a film just because of the HBP trailer.You are absolutely right there! Harry Potter is not Star Wars: and it seems that people attending films to see the Phantom trailer was much more hype than reality.


It is a bit like House isn't it? :lol:Yeah: but one of the :upset: episodes, not one of the :clap: episodes! I am not a huge Narnia fan, but I also have nothing against the franchise: I'm not one of those fan-boys who feels better if "my" franchise outperforms the others! Indeed, I tend to think that the more fantasy films that succeed, then the more interest there will be in making films from franchises that I prefer to Narnia. So, I want Narnia to succeed for my own selfish reasons! :cool:

All I can offer by way of a theory is that LWW filled the big round hole left at Christmas by a certain other franchise. And that's all it did. It did not make people hungry for more.

I said at the time that LWW was too generic; too much a pale clone of Rings. It did not establish its own personality. Golden Compass had the same problem - pale and wan, and spending big bucks on sfx is a waste of money if the director does not have a vision, however simple and straightforward.

I haven't seen, and can't be bothered to see, PC, but having seen TGC on DVD I would summarize its problems: no story and no vision.

I didn't really think there was much of a plot in this movie except maybe the inherent biblical message :( But Ben Barmes is soooooo cute that I didn't care that the plot wasn't cohesive enough... It was just a bunch of kids who start killing people right off the bat :(

I love the Narnia books. I also loved LWW. PC is not out in England untill the 26th but I am incredibly exsited about it ^^.

I love the speasul effects and the way the animals are diffrent according to the side they are on.

No news is good news, they say. So, here is some news. The Friday estimates put Caspian below Iron Man, at under $3.5M.

I saw that too Wimsey. Based on those numbers for Friday I was afraid PC would only make about 10million for the weekend. Fortunately, the weekend actuals were 12million. It's still a 44% drop but I have lowered my expectations a great deal given PC's poor box office performance to date.
I suppose 115 million isn't terrible, but it is clearly way below what was initially projected for PC:no:

On the issue of what went wrong, we might look out on places like CNN Entertainment or Entertainment Weekly. In winter 2003, there was an article about a study that WB commissioned to find out why the HP's box office dropped so much from Stone to Chamber. Full information was not divulged, of course, but it was stated that people who did not return to Chamber after seeing Stone did not come back because Stone was too long, too slow, with too many irrelevant scenes, etc. Disney will almost certainly commission studies to see why Prince flopped: and it is possible that information will be leaked as it was for HP.

I didn't realize that a commission was appointed to troubleshoot HP. Given its tremendous success it's easy to forget that HP had its creative issues early on as well. I do recall some of my nonreader friends saying that Sorcerer's Stone was too slow and that's why they didn't bother with Chamber. I think PoA rebooted HP. I really hope Disney does the same for Narnia. There is already a different director for VDT, but I think they definitely need to do some research to figure out what happened. I spoke to two of my friends who saw LWW but skipped out on PC. One thought it would be too violent for his kids, and the other said there were just other movies he would rather see right now.


Why, my blushes! :blush: I should be interested to learn what they think of my hypothesis there. That being written, it seems that people have come up with similar hypotheses. I think that the first three of your ideas fit in with the "Oh, I didn't know it was another Lion, Witch & Wardrobe" movie. However, I simply do not think that the May hypothesis works: last May had three $300+M blockbusters, and for this idea to work, Shrek, Spidey or Pirates should have flopped last year. Indeed, with the poorer economy, people should be looking for cheap forms of entertainment more than they were last year: and movies are that.

Everyone on narnia web is pretty disheartened and frustrated by PC's box office returns. They attribute its failure to really the same 2 issues we've discussed- 1) the May release date and 2) the lack of continuity/branding in the marketing for PC as a Narnia film. There was just not enough of a link to those elements of LWW that people related to in the advertising. I completely understand your argument against the May release date being a factor given the success of Shrek, Spiderman 3, and POTC last year. However, Narnia doesn't have the "brand" power that those other 3 have yet. (Ironically enough, it was Adamson himself who wrote and directed Shrek 1 and 2.) Even HP, which is so popular, had the worst box office for the one installment that was released in early summer- PoA.



Also, I do not think that it was the 4 children that pulled the movie goers. What unites the blockbusters is the fantastic: and here that was Aslan, the White Witch, and the cinematic spectacle. There are dozens of movies giving character-driven stories focused on characters much better developed than these kids such as Dan Radcliffe's side projects: yet none of them are anywhere near as successful or appealing as Lion was. The kids represent the mundane: and although the mundane is an important part of such a story, the mundane also is the most replaceable part. C.S. Lewis himself did so!


It's hard to say how important the kids are. Many on narnia web seem to think so. If you think about HP, it's really Harry himself that is the centerpiece of the story and are what moviegoers keep coming back for. I do agree though that the lion should probably be featured more in their advertising campaign since it's really the lion that is constant throughout all the books.


Yes, it is darker: but it accomplishes two things. One, it emphasize "Narnia": and that is the franchise. Two, it establishes that there is a new problem. The last film started with a problem (a savage, cold, and cruel world) and solved it; this film needs a new problem. Otherwise, why would anyone (the kids in the story or the ticket-buyers in Mundania) go back?

I think Disney had the same idea- that making the story darker and aging the characters would bring a fresh outlook onto Narnia and attract an older audience. While this approach worked for the HP films, it unfortunately backfired for PC. Most people I spoke to who saw LWW with their children shied away from PC because they were under the impression it was too violent and not appropriate for younger children.


Had I made the adverts, then I would have used parts of the first film (with the wardrobe and the old professor says that they might be able to go back to Narnia, plus some catchy reminder scenes of Aslan and the White Witch). Then I would have put in the new battle scenes and something stating that there is a new problem. Moreover, if I recall, part of the problem is that someone is trying to bring back the White Witch, and Aslan has gone AWOL again.

Yes, you're right. Someone is trying to bring back the white witch, a scene they actually embellished and improved upon from the book imo.


We won't be seeing too many films in theaters for a while: we used our night out for Indy! And, of course, my wife hated Lion..... Still, our home surround sound is pretty sweet: maybe we will NetFlix it!

Well, tell your wife the movie is great-wonderful action, a great story, and the lion is barely in it! :lol::tu:



Indeed, I tend to think that the more fantasy films that succeed, then the more interest there will be in making films from franchises that I prefer to Narnia. So, I want Narnia to succeed for my own selfish reasons! :cool:

Thanks! I feel the same way. I am a huge fan of fantasy in general and it's wonderful to see so many of my favorite books come to life on screen recently- with lotr, hp, and narnia. Lotr and HP were really unique and cinematic breakthroughs. It makes it tough for other fantasy series to have their own identity because these 2 franchises have become a gold standard to which all other fantasy films are compared to both artistically and financially. Well, I know it may look somewhat bleak at the moment with PC's box office but here's hoping Narnia will make it to book 7 the way HP has :tu:

All I can offer by way of a theory is that LWW filled the big round hole left at Christmas by a certain other franchise. And that's all it did. It did not make people hungry for more.

I said at the time that LWW was too generic; too much a pale clone of Rings. It did not establish its own personality. Golden Compass had the same problem - pale and wan, and spending big bucks on sfx is a waste of money if the director does not have a vision, however simple and straightforward.

I haven't seen, and can't be bothered to see, PC, but having seen TGC on DVD I would summarize its problems: no story and no vision.

Yes, I agree that a large part of LWW' success was its release as a "Christmas" holiday movie. There was no LOTR anymore and LWW helped satisfy the annual fantasy film we had been accustomed to receiving. There have been many who felt that Narnia was just too similar to lotr. CS Lewis and Tolkien were good friends and colleagues so it is not surprising there are a lot of parallels in their stories. The main difference is that Narnia is much more of a children's series than lotr and incorporates elements of greek mythology.

I think that lotr and HP were so successful that any other fantasy film franchise thereafter has the proverbial "tough act to follow". Comparisons to these two franchises are just inevitable that it will likely be more difficult for future fantasy films to carve out their own identities. Eragon, GC, the seeker, Spiderwick chronicles, etc are just a few that have not been able to succeed the way HP has.

Yes, I agree that a large part of LWW' success was its release as a "Christmas" holiday movie. There was no LOTR anymore and LWW helped satisfy the annual fantasy film we had been accustomed to receiving. There have been many who felt that Narnia was just too similar to lotr. CS Lewis and Tolkien were good friends and colleagues so it is not surprising there are a lot of parallels in their stories. The main difference is that Narnia is much more of a children's series than lotr and incorporates elements of greek mythology.

A lot of people I know seemed to regard the first Narnia film as "LotR-lite" which personally I thought was a shame. The LotR films set the bar so high that none have (yet) been able to match them. But actually, TLTWATW is an enchanting little story in its own right and doesn't need to be compared to LotR. :)

There are similarities between Tolkien and Lewis, sure, but there are also strong differences in how they approached their imaginative fiction. Tolkien, the cradle Catholic, was irritated by what he saw as the overly heavy Christian allegorising in Narnia. Narnia just irritated him full stop, actually!

I don't share his irritation. ;) I love the Narnia books!

I think that lotr and HP were so successful that any other fantasy film franchise thereafter has the proverbial "tough act to follow". Comparisons to these two franchises are just inevitable that it will likely be more difficult for future fantasy films to carve out their own identities. Eragon, GC, the seeker, Spiderwick chronicles, etc are just a few that have not been able to succeed the way HP has.

Exactly. The LotR films are just amazing, in a league of their own, and the HP films have also been good quality -- especially the last three. :)

I didn't see Spiderwick ... that was supposed to be good, wasn't it? It had decent reviews. The Seeker was well and truly bashed by the critics and also by outraged fans of Susan Cooper who were utterly dismayed at the travesty Hollywood made of a fantasy story dear to their hearts. I felt the same way about what Hollywood did to The Borrowers about ten years ago ... ugh. :no:

It's no good jumping on the fantasy bandwagon for fantasy's sake. There has to be heart, soul and passion there. :) Peter Jackson had that in spades, despite the incredible liberties he took at times with Tolkien's material. :p (Liberties which I found cinematically 'necessary', even though I did not always agree with them! But I understood the rationale.)

I really liked the first Narnia film but felt that the battle was too much 'Pelennor-lite' and therefore trying too hard to be like LotR. (The rock-dropping griffons, echoing the Blitz on London, were a very nice touch though ... as was the phoenix! :agree: )

Anyway, the buzz from the Narnia fans is that PC is better than the first film. I hope it does well here in the UK when it opens on 19 June. :)

PC opens here tommorow and I'm hoping to go and see it. It was never one of my favourite books but I want to see how all of the kids have matured.

I'm in Australia, too, and I'm going with one of my daughters next Tuesday (Cheap Tuesday).
PC was not one of my favourites either, but I still enjoyed it. The only one I couldn't stand, and have never re-read, is "The Horse and His Boy". I sure hated that one.
I really love "Dawn Treader" and "Silver Chair" and can't wait to see them. I love Eustace and especially the dragon transformation and how it is a metaphor for his inner transformation.

I want to see "Magician's Nephew" as well, as seeing Narnia created will be fantastic.

I'm in Australia, too, and I'm going with one of my daughters next Tuesday (Cheap Tuesday).
PC was not one of my favourites either, but I still enjoyed it. The only one I couldn't stand, and have never re-read, is "The Horse and His Boy". I sure hated that one.
I really love "Dawn Treader" and "Silver Chair" and can't wait to see them. I love Eustace and especially the dragon transformation and how it is a metaphor for his inner transformation.

I want to see "Magician's Nephew" as well, as seeing Narnia created will be fantastic.

PC was actually one of my favorite books, which is why I was so excited to see the movie. It was only thru these forums and narnia web that I learned PC was not a favorite among book fans. That may explain to some degree why PC is not doing very well in the boxoffice here in the US.

Unfortunately, because of the disappointing domestic returns, many are worried that the franchise will end with VDT. :no: The CEO of disney actually addressed the shareholders trying to explain why PC was not performing up to disney's expectations in the US. Apparently, according to the him PC needs to earn 500million worldwide to turn a profit, so it's really up to the international box office to compensate for the poor results in the US.

So snugglepot, mad druid, and everyone not in the US pls go see PC and take as many people as you can!:tu: PC definitely needs help if we ever want to see SC or anything beyond VDT on the big screen!
It really was a fantastic movie imho:love:

A lot of people I know seemed to regard the first Narnia film as "LotR-lite" which personally I thought was a shame. The LotR films set the bar so high that none have (yet) been able to match them. But actually, TLTWATW is an enchanting little story in its own right and doesn't need to be compared to LotR. :)


I agree. I know a lot of people who thought of LWW as "lotr for kids".
It's hard for a lot of these fantasy films, particularly if there are some medieval aspects to the story. Cinematically they will inevitably be compared to lotr. LWW seemed to be a completely different story from lotr, but I think a lot of the battle scenes from lww- with the armor, the horses, etc reminded people too much of lotr. When I think of some of the other great fantasy series I've read (i.e. Shannara, dragonlance, riftwar, belgariad, etc.) as much as I would love to see them on the big screen I realize now that they may all appear to be too similar to lotr for the nonreader audience to stand a chance in the multiplex.

There are similarities between Tolkien and Lewis, sure, but there are also strong differences in how they approached their imaginative fiction. Tolkien, the cradle Catholic, was irritated by what he saw as the overly heavy Christian allegorising in Narnia. Narnia just irritated him full stop, actually!

I don't share his irritation. ;) I love the Narnia books!

I knew that Tolkien was Catholic but I aside from the good vs evil conflict, I never really saw any religious subtext in lotr. Did you? CS Lewis, on the other hand, definitely had Christian references like you said; but it did not bother me at all either. I enjoyed the Narnia books too :love:



It's no good jumping on the fantasy bandwagon for fantasy's sake. There has to be heart, soul and passion there. :) Peter Jackson had that in spades, despite the incredible liberties he took at times with Tolkien's material. :p (Liberties which I found cinematically 'necessary', even though I did not always agree with them! But I understood the rationale.)

I agree. Jackson made some changes to lotr but cinematically it worked beautifully. I think there was this mad rush by the industry to try and find the next fantasy blockbuster like lotr and hp, which is why we have been treated to a slew of children's fantasy films of late. However, the story and its cinematic interpretation has to be uniquely special to have the following that hp and lotr had.


Anyway, the buzz from the Narnia fans is that PC is better than the first film. I hope it does well here in the UK when it opens on 19 June. :)

I thought LWW was a good introduction to the series. It helped establish the "magical" world of Narnia the way Sorcerer's stone introduced us to the world of HP. LWW reminded me of a children's fairytale and was very faithful to the book. Despite that, I actually liked PC better. It was a more mature perspective of Narnia. Although some changes were made to the book, unlike with HP, I thought the alterations were "cinematically necessary" like lotr. The movie was full of suspense, action, and some gut wrenching emotion.

I hope it does well in the UK too- especially since it is not performing up to expectations in the US :no::no: There are serious concerns that it will not go beyond VDT so here's hoping the UK returns fare much better :tu:

A lot of people I know seemed to regard the first Narnia film as "LotR-lite" which personally I thought was a shame. The LotR films set the bar so high that none have (yet) been able to match them. But actually, TLTWATW is an enchanting little story in its own right and doesn't need to be compared to LotR. :)

There are similarities between Tolkien and Lewis, sure, but there are also strong differences in how they approached their imaginative fiction. Tolkien, the cradle Catholic, was irritated by what he saw as the overly heavy Christian allegorising in Narnia. Narnia just irritated him full stop, actually!

I don't share his irritation. ;) I love the Narnia books!

I think perhaps Tolkien and I would not have gotten along - I really could not stand LotR - the books OR the movies! And to top it off, I love every single one of the Narnia books! :lol:
It really does seem a shame that anyone would view the Narnia books and the LotR books with the same expectations. Two different authors, no matter how close they are, will, as I like to say, "write with different pens."

I went to see PC this morning. I quite liked it and I think it's much better than the book- although that's not surprising because I don't think much of the book. I'm glad they added in a lot of extra scenes, because the book was extremely lacking in plot. I'm also relieved they dropped that strange mad parade at the end of the book. That was just weird.

I knew that Tolkien was Catholic but I aside from the good vs evil conflict, I never really saw any religious subtext in lotr. Did you? CS Lewis, on the other hand, definitely had Christian references like you said; but it did not bother me at all either. I enjoyed the Narnia books too :love:

The religious subtext in LotR ... well, Tolkien said he saw it as a "fundamentally Catholic work". Which may come as a surprise to many readers since LotR has no explicit religious references or symbolism, unlike Narnia. Many readers do however find it a very spiritual book, myself included. I certainly see Frodo as a sort of pilgrim, and there is something fundamentally redemptive and, yes, Christian, about the notion of humble, self-sacrificial love -- not power -- conquering evil. :love:

I think perhaps Tolkien and I would not have gotten along - I really could not stand LotR - the books OR the movies! And to top it off, I love every single one of the Narnia books! :lol:

Ah, I love LotR dearly -- it's my favourite book. :) I loved the films too: despite the liberties they took, Peter Jackson really did make Middle-earth come to life in an amazing way.

I love Narnia too although I sometimes wish Lewis would drop the avuncular authorial asides (and 1950s attitudes :whistle: :p ) His imagination is, of course, terrific. :)

My favourite Narnia book is possibly The Silver Chair ... although I also love Dawn Treader and The Last Battle.

I like Lewis's adult fiction -- Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra, (I've not read That Hideous Strength) and best of all, Till We Have Faces ... which I think was one of the best works of fiction he ever wrote; it's an extremely powerful and imaginative story and much less didactic than his earlier stuff.

It really does seem a shame that anyone would view the Narnia books and the LotR books with the same expectations. Two different authors, no matter how close they are, will, as I like to say, "write with different pens."

The expectation comes from the fact that the two men are so closely linked and have strong similarities as well as strong differences. They were close friends for a time, particularly during the 1940s, although later became estranged, sadly. Lewis was a big champion of LotR -- he was always nagging JRRT to finish it -- and some of his own works have allusions to Tolkien's stuff.

You're right of course, one author is quite distinct from another. :cool:

I loved the Chronicles of Narnia books when I was younger so I loved the film version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I can't to see Prince Caspian especially as it has Ben Barnes as the prince :D

I went to see "Prince Caspian", today, and ,unfortunately, for the Box Office, there were only about 20 people at the session. It was the middle of the day on a school and work day and it was all adults there.
That said, I did enjoy the movie, though I was surprised how much they changed, and moved around from the book.
I mean, Peter having that fight at the train station? It seems to me they made Peter to be missing all the "glory" of being a King in Narnia, and that affected his relationships and his attitude.
Then there was the night attack on the castle, that was not in the book. I know it added action, and more angst for both Peter and Caspian, but I'm not sure I liked it.
What I did like, that was changed from the book, was Susan getting to fight in the battles. She was shown to be so brave and good at fighting, whilst in the book, she complained most of the time, and Aslan kept the girls out of the battles.
Visually, it was beautiful, and the creatures, especially Reepicheep, were so well done.
And what a surprise, that Warwick Davis played Nikabrik. I didn't know that before seeing it. He got to play a "villain" this time. For those who havn't seen it, he played Reepicheep, in the BBC TV production.
Now he has been in the movie versions of Harry Potter, Narnia as well as Star Wars! What a pity he missed LotR.
Overall, I liked it and can't wait for "Dawn Treader", and to see my favourite character, Eustace!

I went to see "Prince Caspian", today, and ,unfortunately, for the Box Office, there were only about 20 people at the session. It was the middle of the day on a school and work day and it was all adults there.
That said, I did enjoy the movie, though I was surprised how much they changed, and moved around from the book.
I mean, Peter having that fight at the train station? It seems to me they made Peter to be missing all the "glory" of being a King in Narnia, and that affected his relationships and his attitude.
Then there was the night attack on the castle, that was not in the book. I know it added action, and more angst for both Peter and Caspian, but I'm not sure I liked it.
What I did like, that was changed from the book, was Susan getting to fight in the battles. She was shown to be so brave and good at fighting, whilst in the book, she complained most of the time, and Aslan kept the girls out of the battles.
Visually, it was beautiful, and the creatures, especially Reepicheep, were so well done.
And what a surprise, that Warwick Davis played Nikabrik. I didn't know that before seeing it. He got to play a "villain" this time. For those who havn't seen it, he played Reepicheep, in the BBC TV production.
Now he has been in the movie versions of Harry Potter, Narnia as well as Star Wars! What a pity he missed LotR.
Overall, I liked it and can't wait for "Dawn Treader", and to see my favourite character, Eustace!

That's disappointing to hear about the Australian box office :no::no: It is pretty much up to the international box office to make up for the poor returns PC is having in the US. According to Disney, PC needs to make 500mil worldwide to turn a profit. It's only made 125 mil in the US so far, so it's really up to Australia, the UK, and the rest of the world to make up the deficit.

There were a lot of changes made in the movie. I should have warned you, because it does take a while to accept. I had seen a lot of the spoilers so I knew about the alteration in Peter's character, the night raid, the "romance", etc. Initially I didn't like any of the changes, but because I knew about them ahead of time I didn't mind them once I sat down to watch the movie and accepted it was not going to be 100% faithful to the book. Now, that I've seen it multiple times and have reread the book, I think that the changes did enhance the movie cinematically. The night raid added a wonderful action sequence, and having Peter start out darker gave him a nice story arc in the end. I also enjoyed the movie verson of the white witch scene.

I agree that visually it was stunning. I know VDT will be made, but as far as the rest of the series it all depends on how VDT does.

That's great for warwick Davis- I did not realize he was even in the BBC version. Star wars, HP, Narnia- it's great he has had the chance to participate in so many wonderful franchises.

Two weeks untill PC is out in England ^^. Can't wait ^^.

I'm dragging the whole family to see it lol.

Can anyone explain why PC is taking so long to get to the UK? It opened here (Taiwan) last week, and that's with the added work of Chinese subtitles. Are they trying to make it coincide with UK holidays?

Can anyone explain why PC is taking so long to get to the UK? It opened here (Taiwan) last week, and that's with the added work of Chinese subtitles. Are they trying to make it coincide with UK holidays?


From what I read PC does not get released in the UK until June 26. I don't know why they waited so long. Maybe they were waiting for school to let out. I'm not sure. The Germany release, which was lww's other major market, is not scheduled for july 22. I really hope it does well in both areas and everywhere else internationally since it's definitely dwindling in the US and will probably barely reach 140million domestically at the rate it's going.

From what I read PC does not get released in the UK until June 26. I don't know why they waited so long. Maybe they were waiting for school to let out.:hmm: Why would they do that? The audiences in America got it long before most schools let out. I don't know why they would do that in the UK. If they did it to build up hype over in the UK, it hasn't worked because in America it hasn't recieved much attention since opening weekend. It didn't do too well over the past few weeks. It may already be out of most theaters.

Are they trying to make it coincide with UK holidays?

Nope. British schools break up in mid-July - this year it will be a bit later, around 21st July. By that time PC will have come and gone.

Whatever strategy the film-makers adopted and for whatever reason - it was not a good idea.

Nope. British schools break up in mid-July - this year it will be a bit later, around 21st July. By that time PC will have come and gone.

Whatever strategy the film-makers adopted and for whatever reason - it was not a good idea.

Now, I really have no idea why the uk release is june 26. There must be some rationale behind the "rolling out" of international release dates but I have no idea what that is.

I thought L,W,W was far superior to Prince Caspian. I don't know, PC just seemed a little...boring?

I thought L,W,W was far superior to Prince Caspian. I don't know, PC just seemed a little...boring?

That's interesting. I actually thought the opposite. LWW seemed kind of slow for me, with action only at the end. I still liked it because I thought it was a wonderful intro to the narnia world, the same way sorcerer's stone was for HP. However, I felt it was definitely geared towards younger children. I actually liked PC a lot more. The characters had grown, it was darker with more action, etc.

Having said that, PC is a slower book plot wise which is why I think they added some extra scenes- the night raid, the white witch scene. etc. One of the people I saw it with who was not a narnia fan did fall asleep during PC at one point- so you're definitely not alone in thinking it was boring :lol:
For me though, I just loved the movie and wish it did better in the US.

Whatever strategy the film-makers adopted and for whatever reason - it was not a good idea.Does Disney even distribute the film in the UK? I know that they sell the film to other distributors in most EU countries. That is a big reason why it is the N. American box office that is so important when the industry gauges a film's success: the studio's usually sell the film to "overseas" distributors at some set price before it hits the theaters, so Disney (or WB or Paramount or whomever) makes the same amount, flop or hit. However, Disney's subsidiary company (Buena Vista) distributes it in the US and Canada, so they get nearly all of the money (excepting sales fees, taxes, parking subsidy, etc.: all of which add up to a couple of $$ on each ticket!) from the opening weeks' sales.

Now, I really have no idea why the uk release is june 26. There must be some rationale behind the "rolling out" of international release dates but I have no idea what that is.As for the why of the later date, well, for whatever reasons, foreign film distributors often release movies weeks later in other countries. I remember that SpiderMan was released a couple of weeks later in the UK than in the US: I was in London at the time, and that was the only thing on the BBC that made it through the Queen's Jubillee, Sir Paul's impending nuptials, and England playing Argentina in football for the first time since "Malvinas! No, Falklands!" (That must be why I did not get invited round to tea by QEII or Sir Paul.....) Whether this is stipulated by the Yanks or a deliberate strategy by "dem dar Furrners," I honestly do not know.

I thought L,W,W was far superior to Prince Caspian. I don't know, PC just seemed a little...boring?That's interesting. I actually thought the opposite. Well, given the data from BoxOfficeMojo, the two films are held in nearly equal regard by audiences: of the BOM members who have seen the films, PC got an "A" from 58.4% whereas LWW got an "A" from 55.6%; PC gogt a "B" from 25.1% whereas LWW got a "B" from 27.0%. Given the sample sizes, these results are indistinguishable, and they also are very good: unless one can make a case why BOM users do not represent the general public for Narnia, then people who see the films are apt to like them. (Indeed, the bias at BOM should be for lower popularity, at least relative to the US, as BOM members are decidedly less Christian than is the US public in general: the BOM official review of the film was not blasted as heresy there, just questioned for film-mave reasons!)

Here is the big difference: 3.5 times more people have voiced an opinion about LWW than for PC. Now, part of this is due to BOM having an international membership: and a Brit BOMer cannot have seen the film yet. Also, LWW has been out for years: and BOMers are people who typically watch 2-3 movies a week on rental/pay-per-view/etc., so even if they miss something in the theater, they are much more apt to see a movie just for the sake of seeing a movie than are other people. Still, that adds 10-20% of the total votes for films like HP: but we are looking for another 200%.


Oh, and as for the "commission" on HP films, well, keep in mind that "Hollywood" (writ large) is a huge business, and all huge businesses conduct endless surveys to ascertain how well their products are being publicized: people do not buy things that they do not know exist, and they do not buy things for which the known publicity has not convinced them. If things over-achieve, then they want to know why: that way, they can repeat that with future products. If things under-achieve, then they wan to know why: that way, they can learn from mistakes.

So, these types of studies are done all the time. Occasionally we learn about parts of these surveys, but 99% of them probably molder in the desk of some CEO who does not know what a t-test is and thinks that a standard deviation refers to a typical pervert (i.e., the MA film audience.... :cool:) In HP's case, it came up because questions were being raised about the underperformance of HP relative to what WB had expected (= promised shareholders), and some of WB's suits were trying to put a brave face on it. Well, PC is another one that has fallen well short of what shareholders were promised: and as I noted before, Disney shareholders have a reputation for being very greedy (see Eisner, Michael): to mix cartoon metaphors, Daffy Duck level greedy! :p

Does Disney even distribute the film in the UK? I know that they sell the film to other distributors in most EU countries. That is a big reason why it is the N. American box office that is so important when the industry gauges a film's success: the studio's usually sell the film to "overseas" distributors at some set price before it hits the theaters, so Disney (or WB or Paramount or whomever) makes the same amount, flop or hit. However, Disney's subsidiary company (Buena Vista) distributes it in the US and Canada, so they get nearly all of the money (excepting sales fees, taxes, parking subsidy, etc.: all of which add up to a couple of $$ on each ticket!) from the opening weeks' sales.

I don't know what sort of arrangement Disney has. It sounds like they do have a cut of the international profits given their commitment to promoting the film overseas, and Iger's statements that 500million worldwide needs to be earned for PC to turn a profit. I really hope they don't just earn a fixed amount since the international box office is the only way PC will ever have a hope of reaching that 500million. Currently its worldwide total stands at 255million but it is still set to open in the UK, Germany etc in the coming weeks.

Well, given the data from BoxOfficeMojo, the two films are held in nearly equal regard by audiences: of the BOM members who have seen the films, PC got an "A" from 58.4% whereas LWW got an "A" from 55.6%; PC gogt a "B" from 25.1% whereas LWW got a "B" from 27.0%.
Here is the big difference: 3.5 times more people have voiced an opinion about LWW than for PC.

I actually liked PC better than lww. I just finished reading the movie companion for PC and the producers were really committed to creating something even better than what they accomplished with lww. 70% was apparently filmed on location all over the world- NZ, Poland, Slovenia, Prague- and it took 5 months to build Miraz castle to scale. It's such a shame PC did not do anywhere nearly as well as lww.

Oh, and as for the "commission" on HP films, well, keep in mind that "Hollywood" (writ large) is a huge business, and all huge businesses conduct endless surveys to ascertain how well their products are being publicized: Well, PC is another one that has fallen well short of what shareholders were promised: and as I noted before, Disney shareholders have a reputation for being very greedy (see Eisner, Michael): to mix cartoon metaphors, Daffy Duck level greedy!

They definitely need a commission to figure out what happened with PC.
In the US it has only made 133 million. In the same time frame lww had already made 247 million- an over 100million difference! Despite all of our explanations- i.e. the marketing, the summer release date, the competition I still can't explain the large disparity between the two films in terms of financial returns. If you look at the incredible hulk, the first film a few years ago did poorly and had horrible word of mouth. Despite that, the new hulk film (albeit a different production team this time around) still managed to match PC's opening weekend numbers. It's really difficult to fathom since unlike the hulk, lww actually did well and had great word of mouth. I suppose it just comes down to branding- the "marvel superhero" brand is just more of a magnet than narnia is.

In most of my neighborhood theaters, PC is going to be pulled from the lineup all together by next week. It's really a shame, considering how much effort was put into the film.

I thought L,W,W was far superior to Prince Caspian. I don't know, PC just seemed a little...boring?

I can actually kind of understand why it seemed that way to you. But I think I prefer Prince Caspian. I was surprised at how much it revolved around fighting (there seemed to be absolutely no break) but it made it much more exciting, in my opinion. (Of course part of that might be that I had read Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe, and I'd never read Prince Caspian, so I didn't know anything that would happen.)

Well,I finally went today to see the film.Not being a Potter ,I dont recall details so much.So , I like what I saw.It was entertaining, yes it had a lot of fighting ,but to me that was good.I have nothing bad to say about the film.I even liked how they make Susan fall for Caspian.That did not bother me.I enjoyed the film.

Anyone knows where they filmed Caspian,the place is beautiful...

Well,I finally went today to see the film.Not being a Potter ,I dont recall details so much.So , I like what I saw.It was entertaining, yes it had a lot of fighting ,but to me that was good.I have nothing bad to say about the film.I even liked how they make Susan fall for Caspian.That did not bother me.I enjoyed the film.

Anyone knows where they filmed Caspian,the place is beautiful...

Do you think it was better than number 1? I haven't seen it, but my friends said it was okay, and you couldn't compare the two. I hope that isn't the case though.

WeDo you think it was better than number 1? I haven't seen it, but my friends said it was okay, and you couldn't compare the two. I hope that isn't the case though.*

Well, IMHO ,both are very good. The thing with Caspian is that it is more intense,in the sense all of the film is developed in battle.Very few scenes are peaceful not fighting scenes.But , I personally did not dislike that. Quite on the contrary I enjoyed it very much.

I had not read the book recently , so I cannot judge it story wise and how it stuck to the book. But I think they did a swell job on it. I honestly liked it.

We*

Well, IMHO ,both are very good. The thing with Caspian is that it is more intense,in the sense all of the film is developed in battle.Very few scenes are peaceful not fighting scenes.But , I personally did not dislike that. Quite on the contrary I enjoyed it very much.

I had not read the book recently , so I cannot judge it story wise and how it stuck to the book. But I think they did a swell job on it. I honestly liked it.

Montse, I'm glad you liked the film. Hopefully that will help PC's worldwide box office which it desperately needs help with. I honestly liked it very much as well, even more so than LWW. It was more mature, intense, with great character development and action.

In terms of where it was filmed, it's pretty amazing. 75% of Prince Caspian was filmed on location (vs 20% for LWW). The beginning scenes when they first enter narnia from the subway station are breathtaking- it was filmed in Cathedral Cove in New Zealand. The amazing thing about this is that according to the movie companion, they didn't have to CGI any of the scenery. It was really that beautiful. The ruins of cair paravel were built to scale on mercury bay, also in New Zealand. The Miraz castle was built to scale and took 5 months to complete. The final battle was filmed in the Czech republic, and the final river god scene was actually a real river/gorge in Slovenia.

In terms of where it was filmed, it's pretty amazing. 75% of Prince Caspian was filmed on location (vs 20% for LWW). The beginning scenes when they first enter narnia from the subway station are breathtaking- it was filmed in Cathedral Cove in New Zealand. The amazing thing about this is that according to the movie companion, they didn't have to CGI any of the scenery. It was really that beautiful. The ruins of cair paravel were built to scale on mercury bay, also in New Zealand. The Miraz castle was built to scale and took 5 months to complete. The final battle was filmed in the Czech republic, and the final river god scene was actually a real river/gorge in Slovenia.*

Thanks for the info.
I simple loved the scenes in nature, such gorgeous places.

I am sorry to hear it needs help with its sales. It was a good film. Definetly will buy the DVD. And I am looking forward to the next. Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
This one was done so well, it motivates me to expect the next film.

*

Thanks for the info.
I simple loved the scenes in nature, such gorgeous places.

I am sorry to hear it needs help with its sales. It was a good film. Definetly will buy the DVD. And I am looking forward to the next. Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
This one was done so well, it motivates me to expect the next film.

I loved the cinematography as well. I'll probably try to see it again just so I can soak up the scenery again on the big screen.

Unfortunately, it has only made 137 million in North America- which was nowhere near the 291 million of LWW. People have conjectured that the summer release date really hurt its sales, which is probably true considering it was sandwiched between Ironman and Indy IV. Narnia doesn't have as large a fanbase as Potter does that's for sure.

The producers actually made quite a bit of changes to PC the film when compared to the book. They aged caspian from a teenager to a young adult, changed Peter's character quite a bit, altered the chronology (1/3 of the book was told in flashback) so it was a linear narrative, added the night raid scene and the Susan/Caspian romance, and enhanced the white witch scene.
The strange thing is that I actually felt, for the most part, the changes made for a better cinematic adaptation. Usually when they change anything in Harry Potter it makes me really upset. For narnia, however, I didn't mind it. I think part of the reason is when they add these extra scenes, they don't do it at the expense of other pivotal scenes in the book. Because the books are shorter, it gives the producers more flexibility. With HP, they always end up having to cut some of my favorite scenes out (i.e. the marauders in poA, the gaunts probably from HBP, etc.) yet still add new scenes of their own (i.e .this likely burrow scene in HBP) which never made any sense to me.

The producers actually made quite a bit of changes to PC the film when compared to the book. They aged caspian from a teenager to a young adult, changed Peter's character quite a bit, altered the chronology (1/3 of the book was told in flashback) so it was a linear narrative, added the night raid scene and the Susan/Caspian romance, and enhanced the white witch scene.
The strange thing is that I actually felt, for the most part, the changes made for a better cinematic adaptation. Usually when they change anything in Harry Potter it makes me really upset. For narnia, however, I didn't mind it. I think part of the reason is when they add these extra scenes, they don't do it at the expense of other pivotal scenes in the book. Because the books are shorter, it gives the producers more flexibility. With HP, they always end up having to cut some of my favorite scenes out (i.e. the marauders in poA, the gaunts probably from HBP, etc.) yet still add new scenes of their own (i.e .this likely burrow scene in HBP) which never made any sense to me.*

I agree the changes here were for good. But with Narnia, I am not the purist I become with Harry Potter. That is for sure, I dont love the story as much either, so I am not so demanding , and thus , I am easier to please.

*

I agree the changes here were for good. But with Narnia, I am not the purist I become with Harry Potter. That is for sure, I dont love the story as much either, so I am not so demanding , and thus , I am easier to please.

Same with me. I'm definitely more of a purist when it comes to HP. I really like the way JKR wrote things and prefer the movies keep to the book as much as possible. With narnia the books aren't as long, so I don't have as many issues when they choose to add scenes in like they did with PC because they usually don't have to delete anything in the process.

Same with me. I'm definitely more of a purist when it comes to HP. I really like the way JKR wrote things and prefer the movies keep to the book as much as possible. With narnia the books aren't as long, so I don't have as many issues when they choose to add scenes in like they did with PC because they usually don't have to delete anything in the process.

And yet all the HP series will be filmed, whereas the Narnia series is looking increasingly like a total bust, and after a good start too.

This tells us something about purism for starters - that it is of no consequence whatsoever, and about book -> screen adaptations generally.

And yet all the HP series will be filmed, whereas the Narnia series is looking increasingly like a total bust, and after a good start too.

This tells us something about purism for starters - that it is of no consequence whatsoever, and about book -> screen adaptations generally.

Yes, unfortunately it doesn't look like narnia will be anywhere nearly as successful as HP. Are you saying that whether or not they follow the books in the films is inconsequential to the movies' success?

Are you saying that whether or not they follow the books in the films is inconsequential to the movies' success?

I would say it was. :cool:

I understand that the film adaptation of The Wizard of Oz makes significant changes to the original story. (I've not read the book so I can't say.) And yet it is regarded as the finest fantasy film of all time (followed by Peter Jackson's Fellowship of the Ring, according to the recent poll from the American Film Institute. :) )

Textual fidelity is quite irrelevant to how successful a film is, IMO.

Peter Jackson made changes to the story and characterisations in LotR which some purists absolutely hated. However, he made three extremely good films, which is what counts at the box office, and the critical reception was as positive as the staggering box office receipts. :)

I'm truly sorry to hear that Narnia may founder. I won't have a chance to see PC until after I am back from my holidays.

Yes, unfortunately it doesn't look like narnia will be anywhere nearly as successful as HP. Are you saying that whether or not they follow the books in the films is inconsequential to the movies' success?

Something like that. :)

If the source material was all that important, then any version of War and Peace would be a masterpiece, while films based on trashy potboilers (Jaws, The Godfather) would be trashy too.

Obviously this is not so.

Getting back on topic, I'll be sorry if the Narnia series tanks, but the film-makers never really tried to give it a distinctive personality. Same with The Golden Compass which even lazily cast the old geezers from LOTR.

I'm truly sorry to hear that Narnia may founder. I won't have a chance to see PC until after I am back from my holidays.

PC didn't do well in the US- it will probably make around 145 million compared to LWW's 291 million. However, it just had the largest UK premiere in history at the O2 arena (10,000 people) and had a well promoted debut. Hopefully, the UK numbers will help compensate for its poor performance in the US.
It was a great movie pearl_took imo- yes, there are some similarities to lotr which are inevitable- but it was still a wonderfuly cinematic experience.

Something like that. :)
I'll be sorry if the Narnia series tanks, but the film-makers never really tried to give it a distinctive personality. ].

I think it's so difficult to do that. CS Lewis and Tolkien were good friends, and there are definitely similarities between narnia and lotr. People who haven't read the books have asked me what narnia is about. It's difficult to summarize and therefore promote, because unlike HP which has the same trio each time and is essentially a coming of age story- narnia's main characters change every time. It's narnia-the world itself- and aslan its creator -that are the constants of the series.

The next installment- voyage of the dawn treader- has no epic battles and is completely different from lotr. It's an adventure story rather than the classic good vs evil struggle so maybe it will help differentiate narnia from the other franchises.

I like this movie MORE than the first one, I did with the book, but the movie is better.
I am aware of the changes but they doesn´t affect, to my eyes, the story of the book that much.
I do love the first one too, but this one is darker, have more adult characters and definitely the Pevensies are grown up. I liked more King Peter and so the other kids.

It´s different with LOTR , changes do affect, but anyway, I do not compare.

I don´t think the movie is like LOTR, it has similar things, Lewis and Tolkien were friends, it is said Lewis took some stuff from Tolkien (Tolkien said so) and the story goes on, but that´s all.

To be honest, I still have no idea how old is Prince Caspian. Haven´t read all the books, maybe other books says how old is he XD

As I said, I do love both movies in different ways, but this new one is a bit better becoz of the book, I like it better too.
The movie is very beautiful and all actors are absolutely great in their characters!!.
Wonder why people didn´t like it, anywayz.

quote

To be honest, I still have no idea how old is Prince Caspian. Haven´t read all the books, maybe other books says how old is he XD

In the book "Prince Caspian", Peter says, when first seeing Caspian, that he saw a boy around his own age. That puts Caspian as a teenager in this book. I don't think we are ever told for sure how old the children are.
I think Peter was probably early to mid teens.

I like this movie MORE than the first one, I did with the book, but the movie is better.
The movie is very beautiful and all actors are absolutely great in their characters!!.
Wonder why people didn´t like it, anywayz.


I actually liked PC better than lww too, but I think we are both in the minority. PC was much more mature, intense, with a lot of action- but still had heart and depicted a very moving emotional journey for all its characters. I though the pevensies were wonderful this time around, and the cinematography was just amazing.

I think people who did see PC actually really liked it. It was just that for whatever reason- many blame the release date and the marketing- people just didn't actually go see the movie at all. Unfortunately in the US, it's pretty much completed its theatrical run even though it's only been out for 6-7 wks. Lww did much better and will likely make around double the amount PC has made- which is really a shame considering how good PC was.

As for capsian's age- snugglepot is right- he was supposed to be around Peter's age which likely means he is in his teens. The movie aged his character to be in his twenties.

Saw this on Friday and I really liked it. I don't like one more than the other because they're completely different things, I don't think it's easy to compare. I also love the song at the end. :)

quote

To be honest, I still have no idea how old is Prince Caspian. Haven´t read all the books, maybe other books says how old is he XD

In the book "Prince Caspian", Peter says, when first seeing Caspian, that he saw a boy around his own age. That puts Caspian as a teenager in this book. I don't think we are ever told for sure how old the children are.
I think Peter was probably early to mid teens.

Oh yes, The voyage of Dawn Teader also says Caspian´s a bit older than Lucy.
He is truly a young teenager.

I actually liked PC better than lww too, but I think we are both in the minority. PC was much more mature, intense, with a lot of action- but still had heart and depicted a very moving emotional journey for all its characters. I though the pevensies were wonderful this time around, and the cinematography was just amazing.

I think people who did see PC actually really liked it. It was just that for whatever reason- many blame the release date and the marketing- people just didn't actually go see the movie at all. Unfortunately in the US, it's pretty much completed its theatrical run even though it's only been out for 6-7 wks. Lww did much better and will likely make around double the amount PC has made- which is really a shame considering how good PC was.

As for capsian's age- snugglepot is right- he was supposed to be around Peter's age which likely means he is in his teens. The movie aged his character to be in his twenties.

I am completely agree with your first point about PC.

I really don´t care PC was a flop in the US, becoz of the amount of money, I still think I like it more than LWW, and find it better in many ways. Though the first one is still amazing.:love:
It´s a great sequel.

I think today most of the movies are flops becoz of that, they cost a lot of money and right now many people just don´t go to the cinemas as they did before.
It´s really hard for a movie right now to make money.

But I must agree the hype around Prince Caspian was huge, some people (people who never read the book) was expecting probably something like LOTR, Caspian to be a warrior like Aragorn or something.

Some people think Caspain would fight Miraz, but instead it was Peter. Peter defeated Miraz, not exactly Caspian.

But after all I am happy, we will have Caspian in the next movie. We had a great Peter now, he will not be in the next.

I think today most of the movies are flops becoz of that, they cost a lot of money and right now many people just don´t go to the cinemas as they did before.
It´s really hard for a movie right now to make money.

As we speak... type.... Iron Man has broken through $300m in the U.S. Likewise Indiana Jones. Check out the weekend chart:

http://boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/

The Dark Knight will be up there too.

Most big budget movies are not flops.


But after all I am happy, we will have Caspian in the next movie. We had a great Peter now, he will not be in the next.

They are tied into Dawn Treader, then... finito.

Dawn Treader[/i], then... finito.

That's what many narnia fans are fearing. If PC had done as well as lww or a little bit less (i.e. llike CoS and PoA), we would probably hear SC being greenlit by now. My guess is that they will wait and see how VDT does before proceeding. The problem with that plan is that, unlike HP, it takes them much longer to make these narnia films. VDT was greenlit before PC even started filming and it will still take a good 2 years to make it to the big screen. Some attribute PC's underperformance to the 2.5 year gap between PC and lww- that PC was not able to capitalize on the success of LWW because of that long break.

Saw this on Friday and I really liked it. I don't like one more than the other because they're completely different things, I don't think it's easy to compare. I also love the song at the end. :)


When I initially heard " the call" coming at the end I was a bit jolted to suddenly hear vocals and didn't like it at first. However, it has definitely grown on me and if you look at the lyrics, it was the perfect accompaniment to that bittersweet farewell scene. I really like it now.

Well, I saw it two days ago - it wasn't too bad... there were some aspects of it which were even rather good..... The CGI were a bit improved (that was really necessary!!).... unfortunatley I didn't think that the kids had much improved acting-wise. Lucy was so fresh and so good to watch in LWW - now she didn't seem to have much nuance of expression any more....

The only one of the forur kids who has improved and who was really good, IMHO, was Edmund.

Ben barnes is so ridiculously good-looking that it is difficult to critizise him at all.... I thought that decision to give him an accent (not sure which, it changes all the time) was disastrous, but othewise he does OK, albeit not great.



All in all, it was a reasonable film, I thought. I felt entertained all the way through, and some of the images were just so beautiful to watch.... espcially some of the landscapes. I also loved the soundtrack - EXCEPT the song at the end? That was utterly awful - haven't hears such a bad and inappropriate 'end of movie' song for a VERY long time. Shocking, really.


Some of the script and plotting was a little odd - for example, if you have a castle oveer THAT bay - will it really take you that long to recognise the view over the bay which you have been enjoying for so many years? Why didn't they recognise the landscape immediately? That really bugged me, somehow.

The whole little additio with Caspian and Susan is actually more fun than I expected ... but wasn't here last line weird? OK, perhaps it made just me laugh..... with all the New Zealand goodness around them. when she said 'I am 1300 years older than you are the one thing that came to my mind was: well, Aragorn didn't mind, so why should he? ;) :D

Ah well.... can't ever let LotR go, it seems....


All in all, reasonable entertainment, nice to look at - but not a film I'll remember for a very long time, I think....


BTW: I saw it on a Saturday (second day of release), 5pm, in a city-centre cinema, and the cinema (a LARGE screen, seating perhaps 400) was perhaps 20% full, if that - and no children, surprisingly for that time fo the day. Looks worrying for the box office, to be honest. Weekend newspaper reviews haven't been good... and I am sure the comments by reviewers that it is too violent for its PG(?) rating didn't help.

The only one of the forur kids who has improved and who was really good, IMHO, was Edmund.
Actually I thought all 4 of them were better this time around, but I agree that skandar is the most natural.

Ben barnes is so ridiculously good-looking
:lol::lol: I think they were trying to find the next orlando bloom when they cast him.

some of the images were just so beautiful to watch.... espcially some of the landscapes. I also loved the soundtrack -
Yes, I agree. Montse had commented on that too. 75% of PC was filmed on location, and they apparently spent 9 months traveling around the world during preproduction just to find the perfect natural settings for narnia (beaches, old forests, gorges) this time around i.e. Cathedral cove in new zealand, Poland, Slovenia, Czech republic, etc. According to cast interviews none of the scenery was cgi- it was all real and as beautiful as we see it onscreen.

EXCEPT the song at the end? That was utterly awful - haven't hears such a bad and inappropriate 'end of movie' song for a VERY long time. Shocking, really.

I didn't care for it at first, until I saw the movie again and read the lyrics. It's really about Aslan telling the kids- " you'll come back when it's over ( i.e. last battle) no need to say goodbye..." It was actually very poignant.


Some of the script and plotting was a little odd - for example, if you have a castle oveer THAT bay - will it really take you that long to recognise the view over the bay which you have been enjoying for so many years? Why didn't they recognise the landscape immediately? That really bugged me, somehow.

I think it had to do with the fact that it was 1300 years later and the natural landscape had changed dramatically so that it was unrecognizable to them. According to the book, forests had grown where none were before, cair paravely used to be on a peninsula but now it was an island, the crossing Peter was looking for ended up turning into a gorge, etc.

the one thing that came to my mind was: well, Aragorn didn't mind, so why should he? ;) :D
:lol::lol:
Ah well.... can't ever let LotR go, it seems....
same here.




[QUOTE]
BTW: I saw it on a Saturday (second day of release), 5pm, in a city-centre cinema, and the cinema (a LARGE screen, seating perhaps 400) was perhaps 20% full, if that - and no children, surprisingly for that time fo the day. Looks worrying for the box office, to be honest. Weekend newspaper reviews haven't been good... and I am sure the comments by reviewers that it is too violent for its PG(?) rating didn't help.[/QUOTE

That's disappointing. I was really hoping Pc would do well in the UK to compensate for its less than expected box office results in the US. People have said the weather is good there, plus with the european championships and wimbledon there are other activities going on which may be detracting from PC's numbers. I just hope it bounces back somehow. Otherwise, as many have surmised, vDT may be the last of the narnia series.

I saw Prince Caspian yesterday and enjoyed it - I thought it better than LWW; less sub LoTR and with better CGI (though why can't they get centaurs right.) I loved Reepicheep but he's always been one of my favourite characters. London looked good but I'm sure there were far too many cars for the period (gave the girls something to dodge though) The acting wasn't Oscar material but fit for purpose. The only thing that really annoyed me was the silly river god bit. I found the Telmarines suitably villainous without being over the top but thought their accents strange (and unnecessary)

There's a new director for Dawn Treader so it may pick up the series - although it's my favourite it isn't a very cinematic book.

I saw Prince Caspian yesterday and enjoyed it - I thought it better than LWW; less sub LoTR and with better CGI (though why can't they get centaurs right.) I loved Reepicheep but he's always been one of my favourite characters. London looked good but I'm sure there were far too many cars for the period (gave the girls something to dodge though) The acting wasn't Oscar material but fit for purpose. The only thing that really annoyed me was the silly river god bit. I found the Telmarines suitably villainous without being over the top but thought their accents strange (and unnecessary)

There's a new director for Dawn Treader so it may pick up the series - although it's my favourite it isn't a very cinematic book.

Well, I'm glad someone in the UK liked it! PC needs all the help it can get box office wise. It has brought in less than half of lww in the US, so it is really up to the international box office to compensate for that deficit.

I am looking forward to VDT as well. Michael Apted is supposed to be a critically acclaimed director- although I have not seen any of his films thus far. The success of VDT is pivotal if the narnia franchise is to continue. I am hoping he will be able to help narnia bounce back the way Cuaron did with PoA.

Hey, I've just come from the cinema! It wasn't released here till yesterday, so you see I've made haste. I've enjoyed it quite a lot, and, though the plot doesn't follow the book too accurately, most of the changes don't bother me too much. However, I've missed very much the part in which Lucy convinces the others to follow Aslan, whom they can't see, and one by one they come to see him again (IMO, one of the best parts of the book). Pity.

The children are quite improved, especially Edmund (his was the best-written character in LWW, and he still keeps the advantage); it was nice to see him turned into an action hero, and I loved his expression when he "kills" the Witch. The rest of the kids did a good job, too, though it's a pity Lucy doesn't keep that amazed air that made her so charming in LWW. By the way, the Caspian-Susan thing is completely unnecessary to me, though it doesn't harm too much .

Fights: fine. The attack on the castle is a bit too long (though I laughed as mad at the sight of Edmund in a suit of armour and waving a torch), but the Peter-Miraz duel is great. However, in the Battle of Beruna I would have thanked that the trees looked more real and less like a cartoon.

In short, I've had fun, and I think that, as long as one isn't too purist, anyone who liked the books will enjoy this one.

Hey, I've just come from the cinema! It wasn't released here till yesterday, so you see I've made haste. I've enjoyed it quite a lot, and, though the plot doesn't follow the book too accurately, most of the changes don't bother me too much. However, I've missed very much the part in which Lucy convinces the others to follow Aslan, whom they can't see, and one by one they come to see him again (IMO, one of the best parts of the book). Pity.

The children are quite improved, especially Edmund (his was the best-written character in LWW, and he still keeps the advantage); it was nice to see him turned into an action hero, and I loved his expression when he "kills" the Witch. The rest of the kids did a good job, too, though it's a pity Lucy doesn't keep that amazed air that made her so charming in LWW. By the way, the Caspian-Susan thing is completely unnecessary to me, though it doesn't harm too much .

Fights: fine. The attack on the castle is a bit too long (though I laughed as mad at the sight of Edmund in a suit of armour and waving a torch), but the Peter-Miraz duel is great. However, in the Battle of Beruna I would have thanked that the trees looked more real and less like a cartoon.

In short, I've had fun, and I think that, as long as one isn't too purist, anyone who liked the books will enjoy this one.

I missed the "faith walk" from the book too. It was one of my favorite scenes in the book, and highlights Edmund's growth as well. However, I can see how cinematically it may not translate to a very exciting sequence for those unfamiliar with the book. Already with the Lucy dream scenes, my friends were getting bored.

I agree that overall the changes from the book enhanced the cinematic impact of the movie. I thought all the kids did better this time around, espcially Edmund despite his limited screen time. I really enjoyed the action sequences as well, and the duel was amazing.

The trees could have been better- I expected them to be more like dryads but I suppose with the "ents" in lotr, it may have been difficult to come up with a different interpretation. Still I would have liked the trees to have different personalities/characters the way it was described in the original text.

Well, at long last I was able to see it! :)

I went with a colleague after work. Alas, there were only six people in the cinema. :( Even given the timing -- 5.15pm showing -- and this particular time of the week, that compares very poorly with, say, OotP in its third week OotP was pulling in the crowds for at least two months in London). And it wasn't on one of the biggest screens either: this was in Leicester Square. Alas for Narnia. :(

I am looking forward to VDT as well. Michael Apted is supposed to be a critically acclaimed director- although I have not seen any of his films thus far. The success of VDT is pivotal if the narnia franchise is to continue. I am hoping he will be able to help narnia bounce back the way Cuaron did with PoA.

So do I. Dawn Treader has great potential to be a truly amazing fantasy movie: I hope Apted (he's a distinguished name :) ) injects the sparkle and the magic, just as Cuaron did. DT has some very scary set-pieces in it too ... the Island of Dreams, in which people's nightmares literally come true, really freaked me out as a kid.

And it has Caspian. :drool:

Speaking of whom ... Ben Barnes is ridiculously gorgeous. :lol:

I really enjoyed the film. :) I thought it was better in many ways than TLTWATW (which I really liked) ... it was much edgier and darker, and the battles were actually very good, especially the one-on-one duelling, which felt gritty and real. I loved the opening sequence, and I felt the film had its own personality, rather than trying to be LotR-lite!

The guy who played Miraz was excellent ... and I loved Reepicheep! :love:

I liked how they re-introduced Jadis. That was clever, and not out of keeping with the spirit of the books. :agree:

The kids are so well cast ... they really are the Pevensies. :) I found Susan particularly poignant in this ... especially given the fate that Lewis gives her in the final book. :sigh: I enjoyed Peter's characterisation too, struggling with the hubris of having been High King.

So, yes, I thought it was a thoroughly enjoyable and absorbing fantasy film, with its own imaginative little flourishes, and faithful to its source material, whilst making understandable plot changes to up the ante ... I wonder what it is that is making audiences stay away???

Mme Bergerac, I had forgotten about the faith walk, it's been so long since I read the book. :blush: I thought the film conveyed its point about faith in Aslan very well though, in a non-preachy manner.

And it has Caspian. :drool:

Speaking of whom ... Ben Barnes is ridiculously gorgeous. :lol:


Isn't he just? I still can't believe just how ridiculously goodlooking the man is. And, having played a lead role in a National theatre play (and history Boys at that) there is a chance that he can actually act. Now there's some news, eh?




By the way - pearl - you at least must have had the same thought that i had when Susan said that her being 1300 years older than Caspian was a problem... come on - what did that make you think of? This line made me laugh a lot. :D Defintitely not LotR, then ;) :D


In LotR having a wife several millennia your senior is obviously seen as a bonus :D

Isn't he just? I still can't believe just how ridiculously goodlooking the man is. And, having played a lead role in a National theatre play (and history Boys at that) there is a chance that he can actually act. Now there's some news, eh?

He's clearly the next Orlando Bloom. :D Except that Ben can actually, um, act. :whistle: *fears the wrath of the Orlando fangirls* :scared:

By the way - pearl - you at least must have had the same thought that i had when Susan said that her being 1300 years older than Caspian was a problem... come on - what did that make you think of? This line made me laugh a lot. :D Defintitely not LotR, then ;) :D

I was, like, "and the problem with that, Susan, is ... what, exactly??" :p

I liked the little Susan/Caspian frisson. I expected to be foaming at the mouth with purist rage :lol: but ... nah. Not a big deal. :)

In LotR having a wife several millennia your senior is obviously seen as a bonus :D

Quite. It's spectacularly weird but it all seems to make some sort of sense in Middle-earth. :p

I was, like, "and the problem with that, Susan, is ... what, exactly??" :p
There's an excellent analysis of the problem with Susan here (http://andrewrilstone.blogspot.com/2005/11/lipstick-on-my-scholar.html) The author shows it is much more subtle than Pullman suggests

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There's an excellent analysis of the problem with Susan here (http://andrewrilstone.blogspot.com/2005/11/lipstick-on-my-scholar.html) The author shows it is much more subtle than Pullman suggests.

Well, I agree with the author of that blog, that it is much more subtle than Philip Pullman suggests (Pullman's pronouncements on Lewis and Tolkien make me grind my teeth with annoyance :p ) but unfortunately Lewis, IMO, didn't handle the matter of Susan's non-faith very well. I don't for a minute believe that CS Lewis wanted to imply that Susan was eternally damned, least of all for becoming a young woman, but unfortunately the passage does lay itself open to that unfortunate interpretation, simply because Susan's siblings all die when they are still young and virginal and haven't grown up yet. You can see where Lewis's critics are coming from, although they greatly overstate the case.

But that wasn't the 'problem with Susan' I was referring to. :D

In the film, she tells Caspian wistfully that a romance between them would not have worked out because she is 1,300 years older than he is. ;) In LotR, Arwen is 3,000 years older than her soulmate Aragorn, so you know ... Susan dear, it's not a problem. :D

But she had to return to England, of course. Her time in Narnia was up. :(

I remember telling my friends that Caspian is too gorgeous for a children movie. They looked at me as though I was mad :lol: (well, I don't blame them: it was 8:30 am and we were about to take a Structures exam; I usually say funny things when I'm nervous). And, for me, much handsomer than Orlando Blook, though that's a matter of tastes.

BTW, I think that Susan saying "I'm 1300 years older than you" is a joke to make the parting easier. This way, Caspian doesn't wonder what could have happened, and she doesn't torture herself with not being able to date that gorgeous young man.

Did anyone else notice that, while in LWW costumes, armours, etc looked medieval, the Telmarines in PC dressed more like in the Renaissance? I liked that way of showing how time has passed in Narnia. It would have been too odd that fashion had not changed a bit in 1300 years!

BTW, I think that Susan saying "I'm 1300 years older than you" is a joke to make the parting easier. This way, Caspian doesn't wonder what could have happened, and she doesn't torture herself with not being able to date that gorgeous young man.

Aw. :(

Did anyone else notice that, while in LWW costumes, armours, etc looked medieval, the Telmarines in PC dressed more like in the Renaissance? I liked that way of showing how time has passed in Narnia. It would have been too odd that fashion had not changed a bit in 1300 years!

Good call. :tu: The Renaissance look worked well. :)

[QUOTE=Pearl_Took;5081803]Well, at long last I was able to see it! :)

I went with a colleague after work. Alas, there were only six people in the cinema. :( Even given the timing -- 5.15pm showing -- and this particular time of the week, that compares very poorly with, say, OotP in its third week OotP was pulling in the crowds for at least two months in London). And it wasn't on one of the biggest screens either: this was in Leicester Square. Alas for Narnia. :(

What happened? I thought PC just came out there ( june 26 or something like that, right?). It also had that well hyped premiere in the UK at the 02 arena. Wasn't it heralded as the biggest premiere in UK history? I was hoping PC would do better in the UK than it did in the US since a lot of the big summer movies were already released over there, right? i.e. ironman, indy 4. I knew wilmbdeon and the eurpoean cup may have hurt it somewhat but isn't that over already? Is there stiff competition for it right now in the UK box office?
Whatever, the reason, I am sad to hear it is not doing well there :no:



I really enjoyed the film. :) I thought it was better in many ways than TLTWATW (which I really liked) ... it was much edgier and darker, and the battles were actually very good, especially the one-on-one duelling, which felt gritty and real. I loved the opening sequence, and I felt the film had its own personality, rather than trying to be LotR-lite!

I completely agree pearl took! That is what is so discouraging about PC not doing well. I thought it was better than lww- more mature, intense, suspenseful, with deeper character development. The duel between Peter and Miraz was beautifully choreographed and just amazing all around.


I liked how they re-introduced Jadis. That was clever, and not out of keeping with the spirit of the books. :agree: That was one of my favorite scenes from the movie. So many things were accomplished in that scene. You had Peter pushing Caspian out of the way then almost becoming vulnerable to the white witch's temptations himself because of his desperation. Then Edmund coming to the rescue was brilliant! It really showed how far Edmund had come since lww. That was a wonderful embellishment from the book.

The kids are so well cast ... they really are the Pevensies. :) I found Susan particularly poignant in this ... especially given the fate that Lewis gives her in the final book. :sigh: I enjoyed Peter's characterisation too, struggling with the hubris of having been High King.

I really loved the pevensies this time around. In lww, there wasn't too much depth to their characters except maybe edmund. They were children, and I didn't really feel for their characters in the first film. LWW was pretty much a children't fairytale- I never felt the kids were really in any danger in lww despite the menace of the white witch.

This time, Adamsons' characterizations really fleshed out the pevensies and drew the audience into their individual struggles and journeys. With Edmund you saw how much he had matured from lww and become the supporter and binding factor for his siblings. With Susan you saw her difficulties with adjusting to life away from narnia and then the challenges of being brought back in yet again- only to have to leave it permanently. She took in everything with cynicism and stoicism- which I think is a setup to her eventual detachment from narnia in LB. I know many disliked the changes to Peter's character, but I actually felt his character journey was the most compelling- from a schoolboy filled with anger/frustration at not returning to narnia and accorded the respect he felt he deserved in the beginning of the film back to a noble, unselfish worthy high king by the end.


So, yes, I thought it was a thoroughly enjoyable and absorbing fantasy film, with its own imaginative little flourishes, and faithful to its source material, whilst making understandable plot changes to up the ante ... I wonder what it is that is making audiences stay away???

I enjoyed it just as much! I thought the stiff competition is what did in PC in the US (it's practically out of the theatres already here) but hearing it's dismal perfomance in the UK really boggles my mind. I have no idea why it isn't perfoming better. There have been lengthy discussions about this on narniaweb and with wimsey on this thread, but the answer is still somewhat elusive. Most of the people I have talked to who actually saw PC liked it. I think for whatever reason most of the moviegoing audiences just never gave it a chance.


I thought the film conveyed its point about faith in Aslan very well though, in a non-preachy manner.[/QUOTE}

Even though I missed the faith walk, I agree that the theme of having faith in Aslan was well expressed in the film particularly thru the character of Peter. When he tried to take matters in his own hands, he ended up with the disastrous outcome of the night raid. When he finally realized he needed to get help from Aslan and sent Lucy to find Aslan at the end that was when his character finally came full circle and he was able to lead the narnians to victory. It was poignant, but not too preachy which I liked.

Good call. :tu: The Renaissance look worked well. :)


Indeed. :tu:

With ONE very shocking exception. That weird skirt thing Prince Caspian is wearing in that last scene?!!! huh?!!

It almost looks like they thought: OK, we have this total eye candy actor - let's see how much in terms of ridiculous costume we can get away with. :rolleyes: ;)




... nah... I am not shallow. Not at all :D

Was he wearing a skirt? I must be too busy drooling, because I didn't notice. Anyway, in the XVIth century there were court clothings that looked quite like skirts and thighs. But, again, I didn't notice.

Ah, and the song in the last Narnia scene is a complete mistake. You can't place a song with words there, the scene asks for instrumental only! Couldn't they leave songs for the credits?

Indeed. :tu:

With ONE very shocking exception. That weird skirt thing Prince Caspian is wearing in that last scene?!!! huh?!!

It almost looks like they thought: OK, we have this total eye candy actor - let's see how much in terms of ridiculous costume we can get away with. :rolleyes: ;)




... nah... I am not shallow. Not at all :D

Bless him. It would have of been incredibly funny if they had thought that way. But yeh it's kinda odd but in keeping with the clothing of the centery which is good.

I also agree with the whole instumental thing. No wordy songs duran the acutal movie I think. Just in the end. Oh and maybe the beggining. But you've got to admit the songs are good.

Prince Caspian was a great movie but I felt that the first movie was better.

I haven't seen lww in awhile, but I remember it being a beautiful children's fairytale. While I enjoyed the magic and wonder of that first film, I actually liked PC better. The tone was much more mature,intense, and gritty. Unlike the first movie where despite the menace of the white witch I never felt the children were in any real danger, this time around in PC I actually felt the main characters were in jeopardy and empathized with their struggles more- especially after the night raid. This made it a more suspenseful and emotional cinematic experience.

samianther: For me, no songs at all, I don't like them too much.

phoenix88: well, in LWW, when the witch stabs Edmund, you really feel there's danger there :lol: But you're right, it's better seen in Caspian. However, it would have been even better if there was a bit of blood somewhere. Not as much as in LotR (this is still a children's movie), but it's not credible that they come back from the battle wihotut a speck of dirt in their clothes...

phoenix88: well, in LWW, when the witch stabs Edmund, you really feel there's danger there :lol: But you're right, it's better seen in Caspian. However, it would have been even better if there was a bit of blood somewhere. Not as much as in LotR (this is still a children's movie), but it's not credible that they come back from the battle wihotut a speck of dirt in their clothes...

That's true. There was no blood anywhere. I think they wanted to keep it PG, whereas HP and lotr ended up being pg-13. That was probably one of the reasons why PC didn't do so well- the producers couldn't seem to make up their minds about the advertising. On the one hand in the previews it was one battle after the next which made a lot of parents think it was too violent for their kids, yet it wasn't graphic enough to reel in the teenagers and young adults with the PG rating. So it ended up losing both audiences in the end.

I can't remember, did lotr have any blood? It's been so long since I've watched my dvds of them.

Well, LotR isn't Braveheart or Saving Private Ryan, but the battles are quite realistic.

Amyway, it's hard for me to think that any parent can consider the movie too violent just seeing the trailers, They were quite mild, especially compared to many movies and TV series that children watch every day.

Was he wearing a skirt? I must be too busy drooling, because I didn't notice. Anyway, in the XVIth century there were court clothings that looked quite like skirts and thighs. But, again, I didn't notice.

Oh, it was probably historical, although I am not completely sure about the cut of the whole thing. I have NO problem at all with me wearing skirts, and 16th century fashion usually looks really good. But it was just THIS particular costume which I thought really didn't look good at all. The tunic is such a beautiful brocade, and the skirt thing is some sort of dark crinkly fabric that seems far too light for the purpose. It sort of hangs on him in a most unbecoming fashion, I thought. Ah well. :D The other Telmarine costumes were cut so well, so this one came across as really odd.


Ah, and the song in the last Narnia scene is a complete mistake. You can't place a song with words there, the scene asks for instrumental only! Couldn't they leave songs for the credits?

I agree completely..... and this song, I thought, was generally simply distracting. Someone pointed out that the lyrics are very fitting, but I really don't like the way it is sung or presented. It completely took me out of the movie. I know that the singer is someone famous (not to this mid-30's poster, though) and it is clearly obvious that this is why they made that choice.... but still...... this sort of thing can work perfectly well: for example, I rather like the song at the end of Stardust, whcih is obviously contemporary and written to sell CDs... but in the case of Prince Caspian's song... I am not sure what it was, but it really bugged me when I hears it, and it wasn't any better at repeat viewing, although I tried hard to like it.




.... However, it would have been even better if there was a bit of blood somewhere. Not as much as in LotR (this is still a children's movie), but it's not credible that they come back from the battle wihotut a speck of dirt in their clothes...

Well, LotR isn't Braveheart or Saving Private Ryan, but the battles are quite realistic. ...



LotR was borderline for a 12 A in the UK (and I am assuming a PG13 in the US).... especially RotK, actually. They got away with a lot because they made orc blood black (they explicitly say this in the extras). That way it doesn't count as blood and the violence gets classified as 'fantasy violence'. Show the same sort of battles with humans getting killed and you are WAY beyond PG13.


I have to say, I realised only halfway through PC that there wasn't any blood (although it DID distract me in LWW), and at that point I was pleasantly surprised how little I minded this time round. They show us the battles, and for me that's enough. I don't need to see the gory detail. But I did think that it was more like theatre on stage than a realistic film. Somehow, though, this doesn;t matter much with this story. At least for me.

I am not sure why it worked this time round - it must be in the way they stage the battles, but I'll have to watch it again to see whether I can work out why exactly it works better in this case! Perhaps because this time they weren't trying so hard to be 'another LotR'?

Well, LotR isn't Braveheart or Saving Private Ryan, but the battles are quite realistic.

Amyway, it's hard for me to think that any parent can consider the movie too violent just seeing the trailers, They were quite mild, especially compared to many movies and TV series that children watch every day.

I didn't think PC was particularly violent either, but when I talked to some people with smaller children they did say they thought the trailers would be too violent for their kids. I was surprised to hear that, but I suppose considering how mild the lww was, maybe the focus on battles in the previews turned a lot of the families away.

[QUOTE=Klio;5089068]The tunic is such a beautiful brocade, and the skirt thing is some sort of dark crinkly fabric that seems far too light for the purpose. It sort of hangs on him in a most unbecoming fashion, I thought. Ah well. :D


I remember liking the tunic, but I don't even remember the skirt part on Caspian. I'd have to see the costume again to really decide if I like it or not.



I agree completely..... and this song, I thought, was generally simply distracting.

The first time I saw it, I didn't like the song either. Having vocals just seemed to take me out of the scene. However, when I listened to the words later they seemed so appropriate and now I actually really like the song. It's very poignant considering Peter and Susan are leaving narnia for good.
" You'll come back when I call you... no need to say goodbye...you'll come back when it's over...no need to say goodbye." I think the lyrics are a reference to Aslan essentially telling the children not to be too saddened by their departure, reassuring them that they'll be back when he calls them again at the end- a possible allusion to the last battle.



I have to say, I realised only halfway through PC that there wasn't any blood (although it DID distract me in LWW), and at that point I was pleasantly surprised how little I minded this time round. They show us the battles, and for me that's enough.

I am not sure why it worked this time round - it must be in the way they stage the battles, but I'll have to watch it again to see whether I can work out why exactly it works better in this case! Perhaps because this time they weren't trying so hard to be 'another LotR'?

I agree. I remember in lww it was distracting that the battles seemed almost too colorful ( in terms of scenery, the costumes, etc.) yet had no blood despite Ed being stabbed, etc. I think for PC, the setting and choreography of the fighting just seemed a lot grittier, more intense and realistic (especially the duel) that I was drawn into the suspense of the action despite the fact there was no blood. The actors were a lot older as well, and pulled off their fighting sequences much better this time around.

I loved PC, I also loved LWW but I prefer PC the film. I've only just started reading the books, so I dont know which of those I like better yet.lol.
PC is just so amazing I thought though. When all the Narnians got trapped in the castle when he couldn't hold it up any more, and Peter didnt want to leave them! I had tears! So sad!
its sad that the older two arn't in the next film.

I loved PC, I also loved LWW but I prefer PC the film. I've only just started reading the books, so I dont know which of those I like better yet.lol.
PC is just so amazing I thought though. When all the Narnians got trapped in the castle when he couldn't hold it up any more, and Peter didnt want to leave them! I had tears! So sad!
its sad that the older two arn't in the next film.

I loved PC too gemmablack! The night raid scene was heartbreaking. It was such an emotional movie. That castle attack, the white witch scene, the duel, the final battle- and then that farewell scene was just an amazing journey of action, suspense, and sadness that the audience takes with the characters. I thought Wil Moseley really did a great job as Peter. His character was definitely the heart of that film.

I think you'll really enjoy the books. It's different from HP, but has the same spirit and genre. Have fun!

When I saw LWW and then PC I notice how mature and realistic PC is.
Fightings looks more real, the young actors are more mature.
Looks like PC had a different director or something, at least a bit.

In LWW there is a duel too, I forgot about that, Peter vs White Witch, but it wasn´t as hard as Peter vs Miraz becoz she was a witch and he was a human, though, I really think Tilda Swinton rocks as a villain, she portay a powerful White Witch, so one of the best villains I have seen.

But Peter vs Miraz was harder, more arm to arm, William and Sergio really sweat doing that LOL.

Fightings in LWW are not as real as in Prince Caspian.
LWW is a magical movie, PC is the epic movie, more real conflicts, as the villains are humans, and I think it will be the most epic/real of Narnia movies.

The Voyage of The Dawn Treader will be a magical movie as LWW, I think, becoz the book is very magical. I personally love this book even more than LWW.

When I saw LWW and then PC I notice how mature and realistic PC is.
Fightings looks more real, the young actors are more mature.
Looks like PC had a different director or something, at least a bit.

In LWW there is a duel too, I forgot about that, Peter vs White Witch, but it wasn´t as hard as Peter vs Miraz becoz she was a witch and he was a human, though, I really think Tilda Swinton rocks as a villain, she portay a powerful White Witch, so one of the best villains I have seen.

But Peter vs Miraz was harder, more arm to arm, William and Sergio really sweat doing that LOL.

Fightings in LWW are not as real as in Prince Caspian.
LWW is a magical movie, PC is the epic movie, more real conflicts, as the villains are humans, and I think it will be the most epic/real of Narnia movies.

The Voyage of The Dawn Treader will be a magical movie as LWW, I think, becoz the book is very magical. I personally love this book even more than LWW.

Yeah- I think the fighting in PC looked a lot grittier and more realistic than lww. That Peter vs Miraz duel was amazing. I've seen the movie several times but I still feel the same suspense and intensity that I did the first time around. The choreography of that sequence looked so grueling, and Peter's final move was just awesome! I think the fact that Will Moseley actually did most of the fighting and stunts himself contributed to the realism of that duel.
Both actors did a great job.

LWW was different- there was fighting but the colors were so bright and pretty that it didn't feel as frightening or realistic as PC. It was still very much a children's fantasy movie. PC was completely different- definitely more real and mature in terms of the principal actors and the cinematography. Surprisingly, it was actually the same director for both movies- Andrew Adamson.

I hope VDT does well. It has a different director but it is a wonderful book. PC didn't do that well at the box office despite how great of a movie it was, so it's all up to VDT to make sure the franchise continues like HP.

I haven't actually seen Prince Caspian yet, but it looks amazing. The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe was brillinat too! I loved it, and have seen it so many times! =]

I haven't actually seen Prince Caspian yet, but it looks amazing. The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe was brillinat too! I loved it, and have seen it so many times! =]


I loved prince caspian- it was a great movie! I just wouldn't expect a literal translation of the book, because they did make a lot of changes. Despite that, I actually felt the changes enhanced the cinematic experience of the film!

It's already left both the main and dollar theatres in my area, so hopefully you still get the chance to see it if it is still playing in your area! I highly recommend it :tu: It was my favorite movie of the summer.