Narnia after The Hobbit

[Movie Aristotle]

Simple question: Do you think that the success of Peter Jackson's The Hobbit will rekindle enough interest in the Narnia series to get the major players back to the table to discuss a fourth film?

[starkat]

I would hope, but I pretty much doubt it at this point. A lot of people would probably want to see if it has staying power in theaters as well as if it can carry it's success through the next movie before jumping back on to the fantasy bandwagon.

[Louloudi the Centaur]

My guess is that other film production companies will try to buy the rights to other fantasy series, including Narnia, but that doesn't mean it will be immediately made. I just think that with all of these fantasy film series wannabes coming out next year might make it kind of hard to squeeze in a Narnia film in the next few years if the other fantasy films become big box office successes. Narnia always seems to be one easily looked over.

[Reepi]

No, the big Fantasy series train already left the station - there were too many unsuccessful movies that were intended to be the start of a series that never took off - Eragon, Golden Compass, Percy Jackson, The Last Airbender, etc., etc. so I guess the production companies have realized, because something is fantasy it will sell.

Also keep in mind Narnia already "failed" commercially - twice. Keeping that in mind it is VERY unlikely we'll hear anything Narnia soon - from recent actions it seems pretty obvious Gresham does NOT want Walden to make another one and rather wait until the Moratorium is over.

[DamselJillPole]

Yes and no. First for the no is that if the Narnia chronicles that we have now continues it will still bomb because most people don't take interest into it anymore so I don't see why the success of the Hobbit Trilogy would change it in a good way for Narnia.

Yes as in reboot the Narnia franchise. I'll bet after the Hobbit is over The Silmarillion will be in talks, we already have a reboot of Neverending Story about to be made and after a few years when these are release then all they have to do is release a fresh start of another Narnia franchise in say 2023? i know it seems like a long way but by then we'll have a new generation that will possibly fall for it.

[daughter of the King]

Renewed interest in the already existing series? I doubt it. The Estate seems to be willing to wait out the moratorium rather than allow Walden to make another film. Renewed interest in creating an entirely new Narnia series? Maybe. I don't think Hobbit is a good example of renewed interest in fantasy films, though. The LotR fan base has always been strong for both the books and movies. Besides, after the three Hobbit films that franchise is basically over movie-wise since the Tolkien Estate is not giving up the rights to The Silmarillion.

[Movie Aristotle]

No, the big Fantasy series train already left the station - there were too many unsuccessful movies that were intended to be the start of a series that never took off - Eragon, Golden Compass, Percy Jackson, The Last Airbender, etc., etc. so I guess the production companies have realized, because something is fantasy it will sell.

A couple quick comments:

First, Percy Jackson did have a sequel greenlit, which is coming out sometime this year.

Second, I'm not really questioning if Narnia 4 will be greenlit because it and The Hobbit are both fantasies, but rather because the two films are akin to one another in feel and fan-base.

Also keep in mind Narnia already "failed" commercially - twice.

"Failed" is too strong of a word for the situation, and one that was tossed about far too early in VDT's theatrical run. Granted, it opened below expectations, but in the following four months, it held on in the domestic box office quite well and did successfully overseas. It ended up being Fox's second highest grossing film of 2010 and was Walden's third highest grossing film ever.

If Narnia really had "failed" we would not even be having these discussions over a possible Narnia 4. The franchise would be dead and we wouldn't have quotations from the C.S. Lewis Estate or Walden saying that they hope to make all 7 films. The situation is far more complex than a simple failure. Everyone agrees that there is interest in, and money to be made from, Narnia. The disagreement is on how to harvest it: Which film should come next? How faithful or how Hollywoodized should it be? How much money do we seed the film with in hopes of getting more people to the theaters to see it?

My hope is that the success and faithfulness of The Hobbit is enough to get someone to take a chance on a faithful, adequately-budgeted Silver Chair.

[Lilygloves]

I agree that the fact that the fan bases are so similar, it might spark more interest, although I'm inclined to believe that this would mostly be interest in the books. I know that I didn't get into LOTR because I was dying to read it, a big reason was because Tolkien and Lewis were friends and a lot of people on NW are also big Tolkien fans. But that's just me. I think people are starting to get over fantasy films and hopefully all these bad fantasy adaptations will stop. However, a large part of the success of the Hobbit will be due to the success of LOTR. Peter Jackson already has ethos on his side because 1.) He already did a great job adapting LOTR and although his other movies may not have been as good, the fact remains that LOTR are great movies and adaptations 2.) Tolkien is probably the most popular fantasy author and, in addition to the ethos from LOTR, The Hobbit is an easier read than LOTR, making it more likely that people have/will read it. Therefore, the success of The Hobbit isn't so much because people are interested in fantasy, so it makes it less likely that Narnia is an interest because it's fantasy and that genre is "in" now.

[Eustace]

I would hope that this might help, but considering that what we really need is someone who cares about the series to do them as films maybe not. It may get more people interested in doing fantasy films since the Hobbit is doing so well, but, that is not all we need.

We do not just need another company to pick up the franchise we also need a director and scriptwriters who care about the Narnia series and make them right.

[starkat]

With the recent flops of some movies that companies were pushing as "blockbusters", I suspect they'll be kind of careful about jumping back to the Narnia series. However, they handled the LWW press and buzz far better than they did the other two. If they can go back to the development of the fan base through the book fans, then I suspect the films will do better.