BOOKISHGAL

Well, darnit. I just heard this morning about something that was announced on December 24 (thanks so much for the Xmas present, Disney, she said sarcastically): Disney jumps ship on next ‘Narnia’.

While declining to elaborate, Disney and Walden Media confirmed Tuesday that for budgetary and logistical reasons the Burbank-based studio is not exercising its option to co-produce and co-finance the next “Narnia” movie with Walden.

I watched the Prince Caspian movie just last week, as part of my holiday fare. And after it was over (yegods, that nummy Prince!), I was thinking how the producers of these movies wouldn’t have quite the same problem as the Harry Potter movies have had: the aging of the characters. Because the main characters change gradually over the course of the books.

So I was looking forward to seeing Prince Caspian again in the Voyage of the Dawn Treader movie, and Edmund and Lucy, but it wouldn’t matter that they were all a couple of years older because they were about that much older in the next book. Maybe a bit less, but it wouldn’t matter that much. And we’d meet Eustace, who would then appear in The Silver Chair if they made a movie of the book after that.

And now it seems the third movie is in jeopardy, apparently because Disney didn’t rake in the dough that they were counting on from the second movie. (Even though I bought the DVD myself less than two weeks ago. And saw it in the theatre. I did what I could, c’mon!)

I’m actually rather surprised that the second movie didn’t do as well financially as the first did, because the fundie Christian world is positively rabid for the Narnia books. Why didn’t they flock to see the second movie as they did for the first? Was it because there was no Jesus-style sacrifice in it or something, so it was much less easy to use the movie as a tool for trying to convert people? When I was a fundie, that wouldn’t have stopped me from seeing Prince Caspian, but I always was a bit of an odd fundie to begin with.

I do think the movie may still get made. I can’t imagine the owners of the Narnia rights letting Disney’s money issue stop them. And according to that article, it’s possible that Fox might pick it up.

But I do worry that it might not be as wellfunded, which will be a very bad thing in a movie where there are so many more special effects needs and fantastic scenarios than in either of the first two films. And will they have the same actors?? I’d hate it if they had to change actors after we’ve gotten to know and love the ones that are already in the roles. (Imagine having to get used to someone else as Frodo, in The Return of the King, if Elijah Wood had had to drop out!)

I was wondering, as I watched Caspian last week, when they were going to start shooting the third movie. Well, now I know: it was to be spring of 2009, which I had pretty much expected. Except that now it won’t be then at all. Who knows if/when it will now happen?

Alas, alas, alas.

(Thanks to my pal and reader, Tim, for the link and the news.)

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