Mary McNamara of the LA Times is not just a television critic—she’s also the mother of a ten, eight, and two year old. With children of that age, it is easy to believe that her household is very familiar with Walt Disney Pictures.
Yet Ms. McNamara is displeased with Disney’s recent decision to back out of production of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. In fact, in a letter to Disney published in the LA Times, she admonishes the company.
“I’m here to tell you, though it is probably too late, that you are crazy.”
Why is Disney crazy? Ms. McNamara acknowledges that expectations of Prince Caspian box office success were not meant. However, she also reiterates what many other Narnia fans have expressed:
“So, part two, “Prince Caspian,” didn’t make a gazillion dollars. What a surprise. “Prince Caspian” was always the dud, relatively speaking, of the series. For fans who read and reread “The Chronicles of Narnia,” it was the one you could skip. The fact that “Prince Caspian” the movie did as well as it did was a miracle, and a testament to the filmmakers. It certainly did not have the built-in, can’t-wait draw of the first Narnia film, “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.”
Or, more important, of “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader,” which is, hands down, the best book of the series.”
Ms. McNamara recognizes that The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is considered the gem of the Narnia series. A fan favorite, it also contains material that would perfectly lend itself to the big screen.
But as this mother states, it is probably too late to change Disney’s mind. Fans will have to wait to see what lies in the future for the Narnia series. However, Mary McNamara’s letter to Disney can leave one feeling hopeful—with many (including mothers!) rallying behind the series, a large audience awaits The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. It is not doubtful that another studio will partner with Walden Media to bring this classic to the screen.
Click here to read Ms. McNamara’s full letter to Disney.
Agreed! Disney, you’re crazy! I, along with any other sensible person, would agree that not every Narnia film is going to be a box-office smash (i.e. A Horse and His Boy and, possibly, The Last Battle); they are just too difficult in terms of movie making. But there are at least three other solid cinema money-makers here. For Disney to give up it’s current strategy of supplementing it’s box-office hits with straight-to-DVD, possibly animated, sequels for these other parts of the series is straight nutters. You guys are loco.
I don’t think Disney’s problem is that PC wasn’t a bash. I think their problem is they spent the bulk of the $200,000,000 budget and didn’t get enough back. I suspect somewhere deep within Disney, someone thought they didn’t get their money’s worth out of Walden, and that trend would continue.
Remember, Prince Caspian had a larger budget than Iron Man. It had a larger budget than Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix..
And the majority of that money was put in by Disney.
If the majority of the money was put in by Disney, then it would only make sense that their legal team would have the sense to include a reasonable rate of return in the financing agreement. Maybe the solution should be to hire a new legal department, rather than cutting out a reasonably profitable franchise.
The problem is, people see $419,000,000 and think that was the money the studio made. In reality, the studio only makes about half of a movie’s gross. In this case, it was probably around $210,000,000. Subtract off the budget and the distribution fee, and you’re likely going to have a negative number.
In short, there might not have been enough money to GET the reasonable rate of return.
What about residuals?
*smiles* Why do you think you’re seeing more Prince Caspian ads now for the DVD than you did for the movie?
It wasn’t because it was Christmas.
People forget a lot of things. People forget that Disney wanted this shown during Christmas. Walden nixed it because they had “The Water Horse” coming out on Christmas Day.
Disney likely was making a huge push to try to recoup from residuals and DVD sales.
I would gather that Disney saw mistake after mistake after mistake, and elected to not fund the next movie.
There’s not maliciousness. There’s not evil. They’re not an amoral company. They treated Narnia fairly well in their dealings. It’s a rough time, and when rough times happen, the things that don’t perform as well get cut in favor of the things that do. We’re in a global recession here.
I hope someone picks up the next narnia movie. I thought Caspian was a bit of a waste to pour $200,000,000 into, and I think that VoDT would have been better served with that kind of budget. However, what has been done has been done, and now we look towards the future.
I’m with you jh. I’m not under any pretense that emotion or “good vs. evil” is behind any business decision (although it may be behind many). Being that the content of the books deals with young characters, I hope that someone gets everything rolling before the current cast is obsolete and the continuity is lost. The decision to put the series on hold also has larger implications due to the production schedule of The Hobbit – which most ifallibly will be released at Christmas, and could cause more trouble for potential release dates. Which dragon film will come out on top? I wonder.
It will be terribly interesting if The Dawn Treader competes with The Hobbit–two pre-made and rabidly avid fanbases with Their Movie releasing simultaneously? ^_^
I just hope my family can arrange to put both of them in the budget.
Well, I think Hobbit is due out in 2011 and 2012. So that’s not something we’ll have to face unless Walden isn’t able to secure anyone soon.
My suspicions are that this is going to be a hard sell job. Companies are going to want to see some level of evidence that this third movie is going to be profitable for them up front.
Fortunately, I don’t need the movies as much as I like the books.. so if this is the end, it won’t undo any of the work that CS Lewis did in bringing us the books. The movies are just bonuses.
On Disney’s side, let’s not forget that the franchise was about to undergo some hefty changes with the departure of Andrew Adamson. Might have been too much risk for the potential rewards here.
I really don’t get why everyone thinks that Prince Caspian was the ‘weakest link’ in the series and that Voyage is the best. While i agree that Voyage is a great book (it is!), i disagree with the idea that Prince Caspian was either slow in pace, a non-essential story or boring or whatever. It might not be the best book in the series, but everyone is constantly saying that it wasn’t such a good book after all. Well, i think it was! :p.
(If only we think about the scene were Lucy’s the only one who sees Aslan, and they have to follow blindly, or the story about Caspian’s youth, or Trumpkin and Nikabrik, etc.)
(And yes, the major problem with Prince Caspian was the movie in which they deleted these great things)