I think that Narnia might be better suited to another format. One that isn’t contingent on the ages of the actors playing the roles. The rate at which the Narnia movies would need to be released in order to properly portray the actors at the correct ages would be much too fast unless they decided to put together teams to each handle the various books in the series.
Option #1: Animated.
If it’s animated, the characters can be played by just about anyone, and if the actors are children, they can fairly easily re-cast if they need to. And if they have all of the scripts locked early enough, they could have all of the dialog recorded years and years in advance of the animation being finished. Plus, with animation they aren’t limited with what they can accomplish.
Plus, it would be fairly unprecedented to have an animated film series go seven movies long. It would be an expensive gambit, but it could pay off.
Imagine a Narnia movie that looked similar to this:
Option #2: Live Action Reboot – Marvel Style
Here’s how I would handle a live-action reboot if I had an unlimited budget and an incredible line-up of writers and directors. I would take a page out of the Marvel Studios playbook, and operate the Narnia movie project as if it were “Narnia Studios.” There would be two movies released each year, and doing them chronologically would lend itself fairly well to the ages of the children. There would be some problems with it, though, as some of the cast would be filming multiple Narnia movies in the same year. That said, if filming is handled by a handful of directors, it could work out similar to a television series, as far as scheduling.
I would start by assigning a different set of directors and writers to each Narnia book. Each book has a distinct feel to it, with its’ own set pieces and circumstances for the stories being told. Planning would begin all together, with the entire seven to eight movie saga being planned out from beginning to end.
Year 1: The Magician’s Nephew and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Yes, we’d be going in chronological order, rather than the superior publication order. This will help with availability of the cast. At least in the beginning. The children don’t repeat from movie to movie, just the adults, who are either voices or can be available for multiple film shoots.
Year 2: The Horse and His Boy and Prince Caspian
This is another year where the children don’t repeat. However, there would be a small amount for the children from LWW and Caspian to do in Horse and His Boy. Prince Caspian would likely begin filming soon after Wardrobe wraps its’ shoot.
Year 3: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and The Silver Chair
Dawn Treader would have to start filming either concurrently with Caspian or soon thereafter. Silver Chair could also begin as Dawn Treader wraps. Having the different directors and creative teams producing the films is a definite must.
Year 4: The Last Battle – Part 1 and The Last Battle – Part 2 (lol)
Why is this in two parts? Well… it seems that every major film franchise is separating the last book into two parts these days. It’s not out of the question. Would I do this? I don’t know, it’s debatable and would come down to the creative team and the direction. I think it could (and should) all be in one movie, but that’s just me.
Production on this seven to eight part series would begin a few years before the first films are released, and probably wrap during year 3. Something like this has never really been done before, outside of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but it’s working wonders there.
Option #3: Continue the series as is.
Keep going and try to salvage the series going forward. It might lead to live action versions of books that have never made it to screen in any format.
Option #4: Back to the small screen.
The BBC created multiple mini-series of the Chronicles of Narnia back in the 1980s. I think they’re pretty boring and sometimes scary, but a lot of people really like them. After the first Narnia movie came out in 2005, a friend of mine said he wished that it looked the same, but had the script for the BBC version instead. I agreed, but with some editing to make it move a little bit quicker.
Doing Narnia as an epic multi-season television event would allow it to breathe. Plus, with the success of other fantasy books on the small screen, it’s not entirely out of the question.
What do you think? How would you like to see Narnia in the future? Do any of my proposed ideas interest you? Why or why not?