Why The Voyage of the Dawn Treader will Work

After moving to 20th Century Fox, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader film will be released (as though nothing might change between now and then) on December 10th, 2010. Michael Apted will direct, and we’ve got our same actors serving in the roles of Edmund, Lucy, and Caspian.

As we all know, Disney dumped the franchise mid-film once Prince Caspian lost money domestically. It ended up down something like $60 million on that score, but doubled its budget and then some worldwide.

Now, the general story here has been tossed around from every perspective a thousand times already. Since we have a solid release date, I think it’s worth mentioning not only how stupid Disney’s decision was, but how depressingly un-Disney it was… Walt Disney that is.

Dropping the franchise was a decision based (and I’ll just say it, because you’ve seen Disney lately, and you know it’s true) on nothing beyond a graph with two points on it. Point B is lower than Point A, and my little visual aid iPhone algorithm app suggests that Point C will be way down here somewhere. To be fair, it’s a theory that serves its purpose insofar as not losing money no matter what. After all, second prize is a set of steak knives. But, it’s also a theory that keeps you from making money, and it misunderstands franchises (which is as anti-Disney as you could get), and it just misses Walt’s point altogether.

The first story is filled with magic, and is built on a pace that eases us into our characters. We get strange creatures, a magical world, spells, and adventure, but mixed with a generous helping of character development and sound emotional arc. And, without even going further into how well it was actually put on film, most everyone has at least read the first book.

Here’s where Disney misunderstood what they were doing in the first place by putting so much weight on dollars, and this is something I’m certain Walt would have known instantly — Prince Caspian is a throwaway. Now, it’s a very good book. Not the best in the series by a mile, but good. It is, however, a book without a lot of hope when you start sketching the details of the plot out into something that is going to be filmed. It’s filled with so much thought and debate, and inner turmoil, and yada yada, that the movie we got is about as good as that’s going to get.

Don’t get me wrong, it was a pretty decent movie, and it certainly had its moments, but it didn’t live up to the first one, and it just doesn’t have the same charm and power. There isn’t time to really tear apart the characters, because there are too many turns and not enough delays. When you put Prince Caspian down in the way necessary for managing a film, you’re pretty much left with –

Here is a quandry of a moral or ethical nature… well, we’re late for the next battle already.

And, that’s what we got.

It’s not a bad movie, but it isn’t going to blow the doors off anything. You don’t leave the theater filled with wonder.

But, for those making the film… well, if you’re lucky you get your money back on the deal, but at the end of the day you get something indescribably more valuable than a mere bag of cash. You get to makeDawn Treader!

Dawn Treader is, compared to a great many things, slow as molasses. It’s filled with chats with dragons, The Island Where Dreams Come True, mermen, and a trip to the end of the world. It is so filled to bursting with the essence of magic that magic itself gives it rather a rude look, and it sails on oceans of just the sort of character nuance and interplay that makes The Chronicles of Narnia among the most beloved collections of books ever. And, then you get to make The Silver Chair!

Walt understood that sort of game. If you build that my friend, a world of magic and wonder, they will come.

I don’t know for sure that Michael Apted is actually the guy to pull things off to the extent that will realize the film’s potential, but heaping mounds of potential it definitely has. It could easily be an instant and untouchable classic of pure cinematic joy. Will it be one of the best films ever? I don’t even really include that in the scope of what I mean right here. It probably won’t be. But, it is very likely to reignite movies for many, and become a film that is watched countless times and for decades to come. That all may just come down to the jibbering drivel of a sickening fanboy, but when I read Dawn Treader as a young boy, I could fly.

The release of Dawn Treader is now a long way off, but Disney dropped the ball on something that could well turn into a behemoth of the movie franchise realm.

–This is a guest entry by Marc Eastman of areyouscreening.com