The Lord of the Rings series opened up a world of possibilities for the fantasy genre, not least of which was the ability for filmmakers to realize arching storylines that span years or, as in the case of The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, generations. It has also shown audiences that children’s films can be dark and dramatic, yet still prove box-office hits.
“The beauty of these fantasy films, like Lord of the Rings and like Narnia, is it’s almost like opera, it’s bigger than life,” says Narnia’s producer, Mark Johnson. “It will take you to a world where there are talking animals and giants and pure evil to overcome.
“And the beauty, in the case of Narnia, is that it asks [children] to save the day. So with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, we really went out of our way to make sure the audience knew what was going on in England during World War II. These children felt so powerless. So powerless because they were sent out of the city, away from their mother and father. Then all of a sudden, they find themselves in a world that’s looking to them to save the day. So it’s so much about empowerment.”
Lion, which proved a massive worldwide hit, bringing in well over 700 million dollars at the box office, was originally produced to be a one-off film, with the vague hope it would become a franchise, with all seven of the original books by C.S. Lewis being realized as feature-length films.
But with a high-profile producer such as Johnson (Rain Man, Diner, My Dog Skip and Good Morning, Vietnam, among others) and director Andrew Adamson (Shrek) on board, why not take the route Peter Jackson did with Rings?
“What New Line and Bob Shea did with Lord of the Rings, basically green-lighting three movies at once, is unheard of. And in today’s Hollywood, it will never happen again. I just cannot imagine it,” Johnson said. “It’s too much of a financial commitment, and everybody will say, ‘Let’s just see if the first one’s successful first.’
“So, when we made The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, that’s all we were going to do. But then when it became as successful as it did, everybody immediately looked at Andrew Adamson and me and said: ‘OK. Where’s the next one? Let’s get going.’ I think once you start to look beyond the movie you’re making, you get in real trouble. You have to make that movie well first and then look up and say, ‘Let’s do another one.'”
The next one, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, is already on the way and is in preproduction. The third in the series, which is chronologically the fifth, picks up three years after Prince Caspian, and sees the return of characters such as Lucy (Georgie Henley) and Edmund (Skandar Keynes), as well as Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes). Unlike Lion and the new Prince Caspian, the next film, slated for a May 2009 release, will take place on a boat. Contingent on ongoing success, according to an announcement by Johnson at the San Diego Comic-Con, the series will continue with new installments coming out every May.
“The challenge, in a sense, is how to connect it to the previous one, so you don’t feel like you’re seeing a completely different movie. So you want to make sure the audience feels it’s a part of this so-called franchise,” Johnson says.
“[But] you don’t have to worry about repeating yourself. I look at Harry Potter, for instance–I understand they’re all very different and all very successful–but, I’m sure one of the challenges is, ‘How do we make it different?’ We’ve got the same characters wearing the same costumes, they’re in the same school. How do you open it up and make it different so it doesn’t feel like it’s the same?
“In our case, C.S. Lewis has done such a good job of saying, ‘Look at this one [Prince Caspian]: This one takes place 1,300 years after the first one. Narnia’s completely different. It’s no longer pristine, it’s no longer in springtime. It’s gotten old and corrupted and been under siege.”