Empire Magazine has their 2010 preview issue on store shelves, and one of the articles is about the Voyage of the Dawn Treader. The text from the article is really interesting, with some new information from different members of the production.
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
LOCATIONS: Queensland, Australia; Baja, Mexico
TALENT: Michael Apted (director), Ben Barnes, Will Poulter
RELEASED: December 10A great deal has changed in Narnia. After Disney dumped the franchise, the series looked all but washed up until 20th Century Fox came to the rescue.
“It was a bit of a blow,” says producer Mark Johnson, speaking on the Brisbane set, hours after it’s been hit by the worst sandstorm in Australian history. “But everybody came after us once we weren’t with Disney. Everyone…”
Did Disney jump ship too soon? Regarded as the best of the series, Dawn Treader picks up several years after Prince Caspian; Edmund (Skandar Keynes), Lucy (Georgie Henley) and brattish cousin Eustace (Son of Rambow’s Will Poulter) arrive in Narnia aboard the titular Dawn Treader, captained by King Caspian (Ben Barnes), questing to find the seven lost lords of Narnia. Where the previous films had talking beavers and angry trees, this has battles at sea, monsters of the deep and a great big dragon.
“The potential is thrilling,” says helmer Michael Apted. “It’s a wonderful adventure mixed with fantasy.” For the sake of the remaining four books, Fox will be hoping that potential (creative and business) is fulfilled.
I love it that literally everyone came out of the woodwork for the Narnia series. Disney saw potential and wanted to capitalize on that, but the simple fact is that the series does not fit the current Disney long term film slate. It was a last ditch effort for Michael Eisner to try to save his position at Disney, and as you may know, Robert Iger is now in the lead position there.
There have been many more shake-ups at Disney since then, as well as the purchase of both Pixar and Marvel.
Anyway, the potential for the series to actually be finished in a motion picture format for the first time is actually feasible.
Big thanks to my friend Teddy for the article. He found it along side an article for The Last Airbender.