NarniaFans Mailbag #39: Dawn Treader Trailers, Stunts and More

Sorry that this week’s mailbag is a day late. I had some business to attend to. Namely, there were ghosts to be busted, and I was the best Ghostbuster for the job. On Tuesday, a game that I had been waiting for most of my life to play was finally released. Not only that, but it was released in roughly three variations, two of which I know for sure used the actors from the original movies. Ghostbusters The Video Game was released for most systems, of which I got it for Xbox 360 and Wii as well as DS. I have beaten the game on the 360, and just started playing the Wii version, which is a very different experience from the 360 version so far. And I’ve loved almost every minute of it, save for some small problems, and the difficulty level of the game when sometimes, even on easy. When I was 8 or 9, I went to the arcade (!) to play the Ghostbusters game, only to be disappointed by it for not having a similar style of play to that of the movie, and it’s about time they’ve made the game that I dreamed up at such a young age. But this isn’t what you’re here to read about, you want to hear answer to Narnia fan mail, so here we go.

Q: Why was the second trailer for “Prince Caspian” released only 2-3 weeks before the film hit theaters? If I remember correctly, the second trailer for LWW was out two months in advance of the film, and we got the nine-minute super trailer not long after.

That’s the end of my question. I hope they do a better job of trailers on VDT. I saw “Baby Mama” a week before “Prince Caspian” last year, and the theater was still using the teaser trailer. I never got to see trailer #2 on the big screen!

-Mike

Paul: That was part of the mis-calculation of the promoters of the film. They did a big event for the first Caspian trailer, which we were a part of, and then the second one was next to nothing. It seemed like they had, perhaps, decided to cut bait. But perhaps it really took them that long to get the second trailer ready.

One other theory that I have is the movies released early in the year don’t tend to pull in a lot of people, and they were waiting to launch it with the movies that would have the greatest possible impact. They could have, for instance, attached the trailer to Iron Man a couple of week’s prior to the release of the film, at that point.

Either way, however, I have no idea why they did things the way they did with film two. Perhaps they didn’t feel it’d have as big an impact as the first film, and that contributed to the level of effort used in the marketing.

Anyone else have some theories on this to contribute?

Q: Hi! I, like most Narnia fans, am really looking forward to “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader“. As most fans know, the filming has been set back several months, but is currently set for late July. If this schedule is kept, have you any idea when we can expect the official trailer? For “Prince Caspian“, it was about ten months. Is this standard for movies?

-Reepicheep, Knight of Narnia

Paul: With movies, there really is no standard for a trailer. The first teaser for The Last Airbender is attached to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen this month, and the movie is scheduled for July 2, 2010. It seems that one year tends to be typical of bigger movies, while 3-6 months for smaller films. With Prince Caspian, the first trailer was released in the December prior to the release of the film, roughly six months. I believe what you were talking about is the set videos. We’re not sure, really, when we’ll start to see trailers for the film, but I’d expect that they will want to start creating awareness in December of this year. So I’d expect to see something this year, with a ramp up happening throughout 2010.

Q: Hi, Paul! This is a two-part question. In ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe‘ did William, Anna, Skandar, and Georgie have stunt or size doubles? How much of the movie do you think that these four actually did? As for the second part, it’s basically the same question only for ‘Prince Caspian‘: did the four ‘Pevensies’ and Ben have doubles? I know that William did most of his own stuff. Thanks a lot.

-Tarwe, the Narnian Elf

Paul: In both movies, as is typical of big films with action sequences, they all had stunt doubles. Not really size doubles, as that only tends to apply with movies that include things such as Hobbits, as far as I know. Sure, they’d do as much as they could, but for insurance purposes, there are big reasons for having the stunt doubles. If anything should happen, they save hundreds of millions in re-shoots and re-casting. I can’t really say percentages, as I wasn’t on set for the shoot, but I do know that they all wanted to do their own stunts from time to time, and they all got their chance, something that I’m really happy about, for them.

And that’s it for this week’s mailbag. That was short, but with good reason. My sister has Thyroid Cancer, and needs prayers that her surgery goes well, and I have a friend, who is pregnant, has to get her apendix out, and something might be wrong with her liver, too. So, that being said, keep sending the e-mails and commenting.

As for the secret project, I suppose I’ll give one more clue, but asking a question like “what is the secret project?” is a cleaver approach that will get you nowhere. Anyway, the secret project is web-based.