Walden Media is one of the few film companies out there today which consistently puts out quality family films (“Narnia,” City of Ember, Bridge to Terabithia, Charlotte’s Web), but unfortunately, few of their films have made enough money to warrant being called true successes. The first (and perhaps second) “Narnia” movie was box office gold, but Terabithia, Charlotte’s Web, and a few others make only moderate amounts of money and some Walden films are downright flops (City of Ember, The Seeker). Now, Disney in effect wants to cancel “The Chronicles of Narnia.”
The reason Walden Media refuses to let go of the Narnia franchise (the reason they are still looking to make The Voyage of the Dawn Treader) is because the Narnia movies are the only Walden films that have made blockbuster money. Only one non-Narnian Walden movie has grossed more than $100 million domestically and no non-Narnian Walden movies have made more than $225 million worldwide. Walden is afraid that, if they let go of Narnia, they will go under. This is very likely. They need Narnia because not only does it keep them afloat, but also because the Narnia series has massive potential to rake in the big bucks.
And 20th Century Fox may very well be willing to pick up the series. Fox’s number one movie this past year (Horton Hears a Who) made less than $300 million worldwide. Their number one for the previous year (The Simpsons Movie) made $527 million worldwide. Their number one for 2006 (X-Men: The Last Stand, which cost around $200 million between production and marketing) made $460 million worldwide. And all of these films were marketed appropriately and released on a date conducive for that sort of film making money. Prince Caspian, which we all will certainly agree was marketed poorly and given a bad release date, made very nearly what X3 did worldwide (and X3 was considered a huge success). The Voyage of the Dawn Treader will almost certainly make more than $460 million if it’s released in December 2010. The fact that the gross will probably be higher coupled with the fact that the production budget will be reduced to $140 million (which is less than X3’s production cost) leads me to believe that Fox might be interested.
Fox, unlike Disney, seems to be pleased with moderate successes and Narnia has the potential to be far more than moderately successful. If Fox picks up the option, it might just be a perfect fit, financially speaking. After all, the”X-Men” franchise can only go so much farther and “Star Wars” seems to be all over (at the cinema anyway). Fox, like Walden, needs (something like) Narnia. Even still, the distributor that potentially picks up the franchise has to be careful with Narnia, as it has to be made and marketed just right (not just for established Narnia fans, but for the general movie going public). But, given the right circumstances (which can mostly be controlled by the distributor), Fox and Narnia could work well for one another.