This morning, Variety broke the news that Walden Media, the studio behind the first three movies in the Chronicles of Narnia series, is selling it’s film library. The report reads:
“Walden Media is selling its film library, Variety has learned.
Best known for family fare like “Bridge to Terabithia” and the “Chronicles of Narnia” series, Walden plans to use all of the money it receives from the sale to fund future productions. The company plans to make up to four films annually and is branching into television.
No deal has been finalized, but the company has identified several interested buyers for the 46 films it is selling. Upcoming projects will not be included in the auction. Deloitte is handling the sale.”
The report goes on to say that in 2013 the studio suffered a series of layoffs and dialed down it’s output due to studios cutting the number of films the release annually. No word on what this means for the Narnia franchise, but stay tuned to NarniaFans.com for more details on this breaking news.
Source: Variety
[Editor’s Note: This won’t effect the production of any future Narnia movies as those rights are now with the Mark Gordon Company. What this could do, potentially, is bring the three current Narnia films under one roof so they could be released as a single box set. That’s all a guess at this point. The Narnia films were all co-productions with other major studios that could stop that from happening. I’ve never seen anything like this before, so it’ll be interesting to see how this works out.]
