Okay, the story from this weekend has brought about hope, which is always a good thing. I was very happy to see how people took to the potential for more Narnia was overwhelmingly positive.
I reached out to some sources of mine within the production team, and what I was told has made all of this even more confusing than before. I have seen NarniaWeb’s story on the situation, and there are some facts that they have that don’t line up exactly with what I have. And that also compounds the confusion. Whether or not Walden Media lost the ‘film rights’ or allowed the ‘option’ to expire depends on who you ask. What that means also depends on who you ask. As far as I know, Walden is still the only company that can move forward with another film, unless they sell the rights to another studio.
Tirian and I spoke on the phone about all of this, trying to come up with something that we can say, that is factual without a doubt, and this is it:
The bottom line is this: It will be a long time before another Narnia film is on the silver screen.
If Walden Media started tomorrow on another Narnia, the earliest the film could hit the big screen is three years from now. Movies take a long time to produce.
I wish that I could give more details about the why and what that is happening, or not happening, behind the scenes. There may or may not be scripts being written. There may or may not be ongoing negotiations. We’re trying to get information that we can tell you from both studios and the Estate. It’s not my place to spread that kind of information though. I can only report what I hear that isn’t mentioned in confidence.
We will hear about any further developments and report about them when we can. Just remember that it could be a very long time. And that, I’m afraid, is all that I have that I can report at this moment. And remember, as folks have pointed out in the comments, we still have the books our imaginations and each other.
Sigh…Oh well. Hopefully, it’ll be worth the wait.
[keeping my fingers crossed for MN]
EXCUSE me?! Narnia is ALWAYS worth the wait, Daniel! Because…well, it’s Narnia 😀
Hey, whatever happens, I’m still going to live like a Narnia fan and still be 100% proud of it. We still have the books which we know will be read forever, unlike the films which won’t be made forever.
Hey, the Narnians gave up on Aslan in PC, but Lucy persisted that He was there. She kept looking until she saw Him. I am going to be like Lucy. I am going to keep looking for what I’m looking for until I find it.
In the meantime, we always have the books, which I will cherish many times more than any Narnia film. 🙂
If this were facebook, I would “like” your comment. 🙂 You’re right, the books are almost always better than the movies.
Me too! (You should make that part of the comments Paul! You could like other comments!) I agree!
And, I’ve said before, but I never knew if I could stand by it, that I would wait 10 years, for a PERFECT Narnia movie! I don’t really care HOW long they spend! As long as they DO make a movie, and that it is done (at least) semi well! I DO NOT want another VOTDT… But I don’t want another LWW (like Fox tried to make VOTDT) I just want a movie in itself!
PEOPLE: PLEASE start praying now, that the next movie turns out good! All Fox talked about last year was, “This movie will bring in lots of money for the franchise! and thats NOT what we want our producers to be thinking! If they do, we will end up with another VOTDT! If they don’t we will end up with a movie in its own that in the long run WILL make more money, and WILL be REALLY good for the series!
Thanks for the news Paul!!! Can’t wait to hear more! (I LOVEEEEE this time on Narniafans! When the first talk of a new movie comes out!)
they needed it to bring in money to save the series! THAT’S what they meant. not some evil greedy purpose!
All the Narnia movies are amazing, Voyage of the Dawn Treader the ending made me cry like a baby! I wish the movies wouldn’t take so long!
LOL, i was just thinking- I wish i could “like” this! : )
I’m glad you said “almost always”. Majority of the time it is true that adaptions of books are not always in the way we like. Sometimes they par up almost equally like in my opinion of LWW, LOTR series, and roughly the first three HP films. Then there are some cases where you actually like the film better than the book and this was my case with Stardust.
There are a number of books I’ve felt were better than the movies. Big Fish (Tim Burton’s masterpiece captured the character of Edward Bloom better than the book, which had the character cheat on his wife), The Shawshank Redemption (based on the Stephen King short story), and a few others.
you meant to say the movies were better than the book, i think.
I agree with you, books are better than the movies …. But movies are also a way of seeing the incredible and fantastic is the world of Narnia 😀
You’re right Louloudi. Thanks for your message. It’s time for us to be like Lucy, and like Trufflehunter.
FNAFA
True..true..I want them to make more movies but even if they don’t thank god we have the books 🙂 keep on the sunny side of life 🙂
I don’t want to have to wait a long time, but maybe if they make the next movie really, really good and close to the book that will make up for the long wait.
I have to admit, when I first read this I was like, “Well that is the most sucky news ever”… Yet, after reading the comments above that where more filled with hope then dissappointment I am reminded of the power of these stories. I have faith that they will be made all in “the true Aslan’s” timing. These books are masterpieces and I remind myself I would want them done correctly and not rushed just because we live in a society of here and now…
Thanks to all the Narnia fans who still believe in Narnia even when it looks like “there isn’t a Narnia to believe in”! And thanks C.S. Lewis for the stories I will love and cherish till the day I die! 🙂
FOR ASLAN!
si la noticia es un poco triste que tardaran en hacer una nueva pelicula en 3 años mas de espera yo que soy fan de narnia les digo que no se desanimen
A very satisfying response. Thank you for writing this. I was a little concerned that Walden had lost the rights to Narnia. I can not think of any other studio I would want to make another Narnia film. I would be glad to hear if Disney got back on track with Walden to make more Narnia films, but right now I just hope to see more great Narnia films. Thanks for trying to straighten out the facts and the rumors. I hope this all gets cleared up soon.
sad about Walden media…I really liked it when they did VDT.
I want more movies, but hey, who needs them? I’ve got the books, and that’s more than enough…
I won’t lose heart. The books will be a good escape. I know the CS Lewis estate wants the movies made. Why wouldn’t they? They are great stories. They stand the test of time.
remember too, that the radio theatre versions are excellent and true to the books! that can help tide us over too!
Yet another puzzle piece supplied. But while we now better understand the current situation with the Narnia fan sites, we are still no closer to understanding what is going on with the next Narnia film.
It’s gonna be a long wait and i hope it’ll be worth it..well, even if it isn’t we’re always a part of the Narnian Kingdom 🙂
FNAFA…..Further up! Further in!!
I WILL NERVER GIVE UP !!!!!! something in me tells me that we are not going to wait much longer for a new narnia movie, because i feel like one day they will telling us ok we have the scpit and they will greenlit one and started looking for new actors!!! and everything will so fast that we could not bealived so i hope that one will be MN !!!!! so guys thre will defenitely another narnia movie and our hope never give up!!!!!! CUZ I LOVE THE TRHEE FIRST MOVIES AND OF COURSE I LOVE DE BOOKS!!!!
Glad there is still hope. Go Narnia! 🙂
I still won’t give up hope! 🙂
me too^^
It’s disappointing news, but if we are going to wait years for another Narnia movie, I’d like to know ahead of time that I will be waiting years…. can you imagine waiting years for news on another Narnia, thinking that “maybe next month” there will be more news?
It’s sad, but oh well…in the meantime I will make due with HOBBIT news… and the potential ‘A Wrinkle In Time’ film.
A potential Wrinkle In Time flim?!?!?!?!?! Why didn’t I hear about this?!?!?!?!!?!? That was one of the FIRST books I’ve ever read for school and actually ENJOYED!!! I would be SO thrilled to see that remade!
I will try to be patient until more Narnia films are made 🙂 I will never give up the hope that the rest of the books will be made into movies!!
Especially “The Last battle!!” I’ve been waiting for the movie since the moment I first read the book.:)
The movies aren’t Narnia. They were a nice little distraction for a while though.
Bit harsh. To many, they are Narnia.
Maybe they were just trying to be in character (notice their user name 😀 )
yeah, the movies came first, for me, i have a hard time reading the books, not as involving.
No way! My friend you are seriously missing out!Don’t get me wrong I love the films, but C.S. Lewis’ style of writing and imagery are amazing. Not to mention the sense of friendship, love, magic, adventure, and loyalty that fill every page of the books!
If you are not into reading I understand, but I saw someone posted elsewhere about the “Focus on the Family Radio Theatre” productions of all 7 books. It’s kind of like a book on tape, except not just one guy reading the book page by page… blah. It’s like actual actors voices talking and they are brilliant if you don’t like to read. I feel like you haven’t really expirienced Narnia until you’ve cracked open one of the books! Give the radio drama a try, I promise it will be so worth your while. Seeing Narnia in the brilliant light they were orginally meant to be… your own imagination 🙂
Some people are simply visual people, like me. I prefer the movies because I like to see it more than read it, as well as sharing that experience of the story with others. So I LOVE the books, but I still love the movies more. It’s just a personal preference 😉
thank you sarai. yes i have the dramas and enjoy them! with the books, it’s hard to read a kids book if you first read it as an adult, especially if you just had your eyes dazzled by the first movie. reading a book seems so slow and dry after that. and im a voracious reader. if i had read the books as a kid, it would have been different. but when i read VDT first, then the movie was upsetting as it fell so far short. it shortchanged the spirituality out of it. the perfect situation would be a faithful movie, preferably a miniseries, so they don’t have to cut out so much. im going to try to read the books again though. it’s all we have now.
I guess I understand a bit better, because growing up my mother read the books to me… so I suppose part of me still reads them along with my childhood memories. I’m sorry that you felt VTD was a dissappointment to you. I’ve come to the point where I’ver realized you need to keep the books and movies separate inside your mind. The book is not the movie and the movie is not the book. The movie is “based” off the movie.
I understand what you mean about the spiritual aspects. I told my mom right before VDT came out that the only thing that could ruin it for me was if the scene where Aslan tells the children about his “other name” or his name in our world was cut. I was so extatic when it wasn’t. Ultimately that is what the Chronicles of Narnia come down to. Seeing God in Narnia so that we search for Him in our own world. 🙂 That scene made me so happy. What a great oppurtunity for us Christians. How many people are going to walk out of a theatre after watching the film wondering, “What is Aslan’name in our world?” C.S. Lewis wrote it was Jesus Christ 🙂 Amen to that.
I meant the movie is based off the book* haha
yes i was happy they included it. but, they weren’t going to, and i believe gresham INSISTED they include it. there could have been so much more about aslan’s country, put they made it an afterthought. but it was better than NO movie at all..
yes, the scene at the beach finally felt like a real narnia movie to me. the first part strangely didn’t.
You know, that little comment about the movies being a “nice little distraction” really made me angry. Yes, the movies aren’t the most faithful adaptions, I will admit that VDT was quite far from the book, but the movies, such as Paul has said, were Narnia to some people. Me included. I have watched your videos and I know that you have a serious passion for the Narnia books and you want to have the movie made in a way that respects and honors C.S. Lewis’ writing. I respect that. But your opinion isn’t always the way it has to be. There can be things you don’t like.
No, the Narnia movies aren’t a “distraction”. They are a wonderful made trilogy of movies based off of one of the best series written by man.
With you 100%
the movies are super important to me, too.
Yeah, uh, I totally agree with that. I like the movies because- and this is just my opinion- they make the characters and situations feel a LOT more relatable. But I don’t think you can have one without the other, for sure. 🙂
how can you say the movies aren’t Narnia? The movies let Narnia fans view Narnia in an entirely different way than the books and radio theater ever let us see. The Movies helped evolve C.S Lewis’ vision into a full blown master piece and I am very disappointed with the fact that there may be no more Narnia, and I’m sorry but if they Clean Slate the series we all know the new actors that play the Pevensies won’t be as good as the ones we have now! You can never top originals!
That is really really sad:(:(:(:( oh well I just hope they get to make another one before it’s to late.
I kinda figured that already. Sad, but atleast it seems likely will still get them eventually. I wish Fox knew how much money they could make if they only followed the books better. I really don’t care if they change the movie form the books, as long as the story flow and the morals, characters, scenes, etc. are the same. If they add a war scene, I could care less, I might even like it! But the only reason I hope they stay close to the book is so it makes money, and we get more movies 😛
Though I may have to wait many years from now, I won’t give up hope that another Narnia film will be made!
man, that some tough stuff. At least we will learn to be pacticent…
The only thing I know for certain is that there is a page for MN on IMDB for 2014, but not for Silver Chair. This is was the case when I checked. The way I really have a feeling if an adaption is going somewhere is when you slowly begin to see updates on the page. This is the case for the next Percy Jackson film saying it will release next year. The only odd thing is, is that it is only in the state of having been announced, but no production. They even have a list of some of the characters/actors and it is constantly being updated. So I guess the only way to really know if IMDB updates the page in the next several months.
interesting. I think we’ve been hearing the same stuff since VDT came out.
As long as in the end (Maybe 15 yrs from now 🙂 ) I’m happy about the way they all turned out, I’ll wait 🙂
I’m hoping that Walden & the CS Lewis estate will see the love of the fans for both the movies & the books & want to move forward with more movies. Alas, by the time they do Will Poulter will most likely be too old to play Eustace again, though he did a marvelous job. Still, we have enough visuals with the movies we do have to make the books come alive even more when we read them again. Love all 3 of the movies & the books even more now.
I am sorry to hear about this long wait because I’ve been starting to hear people around me saying that the Narnia films are un-filmable. I know that a lot of you are very impatient about the future of the films (I am all for having another one) But I would rather have a film released that is excellent in a decade than one that is released relatively quick but is of relatively low quality. I think the best thing to do right now is to hope and pray for the future of the films that they can be done right, and if they are not made, we can look back on what we have. After only three films, this franchise is the 18th highest-grossing franchise of all-time. LWW is still the 41st highest-grossing movie of all time. All movies have grossed more than $400 world-wide. And on top of that, the quality of the films was never horrible. We have fond memories of all of the movies. We can keep those with us. And above all, the most important thing to remember is that Narnia series was an excellent series of books before they were excellent movies. C.S. Lewis never intended for his books to be movies. He intended for Narnia to be loved by children of generation after generation. Whether on the page or on screen, Narnia has impacted all of us in a positive way, and that is what we should focus on.
By the way, how did this happen? I mean, what made Walden’s contract expire? How did this come about? After the Dawn Treader was released, everyone was preparing for another Narnia film. What happened? I was so anxious to see the Magician’s Nephew. I even had chosen who I wanted to play Digory and Polly (Asa Butterfield and Amelia Clarkson.) I’m so mad that this came about! Hopefully, the time period of waiting won’t be long.
@WarriorofNarnia you are right Asa Butterfield would be an awesome Digory
This makes me a little more hopeful than I was after reading the article on Narniweb. Thank you for writing this Paul.
BTW, I was just on Larry411’s twitter page and people had alerted him about all this. And he replied: “What I posted earlier about Narnia has not changed or been affected by what has been posted online” and “No, that doesn’t contradict what I’ve been posting. I’ve been saying that they do want to mak… (cont) http://deck.ly/~KyRcK” as well as a great many other things to the same affect. Can we believe this?
Ooooooooo….. He made me MAD!!!!!! (liar)
I don’t know if he lied or not. Maybe his sources did?
I know that Larry411 isn’t lying. At least not intentionally. He’s been told the same sort of things that I have.
Good, I hope those things you’ve heard are true!
so there’s hope?
*sigh*
Wikipedia says :”Following its success(VDT), The Magician’s Nephew has been confirmed to be the fourth entry to the series.”
Is that true?
don’t believe everything Wikipedia says
just asking..It’s official that MN will be Narnia 4 if there is one,right?
Hey all, haven’t been on in forever. 😉
This is great news, but seriously? At LEAST three whole YEARS???? Ummm, I CAN’T WAIT THAT LONG!!!!!!!!!!!!! What am I gonna do with my life while waiting?!
But all kidding aside, really?? I mean, I know that money and such plays a big role in this decision, but people are going to forget about Narnia if they take THAT long to make the next film…
🙁 I’ve been waiting forever already for someone to do “The Last Battle”! 🙂 That’s my 2nd favorite in the series! Why can’t we do “The Silver Chair” in less than 2 years? And besides they should’ve already been working on it as soon as “The Voyage on the Dawn Treader” came out (Maybe even before that!). I like Walden Media’s version and I love to read(don’t get me wrong)but most movies have a better picture than my own imagination. Please don’t let it take to long for The Silver Chair to come out. Call for Walden Media and Fox to green light The Silver Chair! 🙂
I REALLY want them to make another movie. IF they dont move fast the kids all the actors will be too old to play the charcters. There all growing up to fast. If they dont do it soon too some fans will become uninterested or will be too old or will forget about the series. HPs over and TWilight has a little left in it . but if they do a movie i saw right after twilights over is hte perfect time to have one come out i would really like to see this series end. Not end half way through and unfinished that would be sad for all the fans.
I’m so glad Walden Media still owns the rights to the movies. Even if we have to wait, it would be a good wait. I know they can make all the books into movies. They just have be careful not to pull away TOO much from the books like they did with the last 2 movies. So far the best movie they made was The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
Yes agreed thats what i was saying, if they pull TOO much time away the kids will be too old, fans will be uninterested because by the nthe next big thing ill be out twilight or Hunger GAmes. If they waant to make a new one soon would be good like next 3 yrs
really it require 3 yrs for next narnia film? sooooooo sad!! since i have books and i read it still i am dying to watch MN. love narnia forever.
yes cause they have to do all the animation and create all teh charcters by hand on the computer it takes a while. but still i mean ive seen film with this much animation and it doesnt take 3 yrs. but if they decide to do a new one i dont think they shoud wait because after a few years narnia fans will move on to other things and the kids will be too old. hopefully they make one soon. And i agree because it would be honestly be ashame to see the series end halfway through there isnt many films left and it would be nice to have the series end at the last book.