Narnia Fans » Prince Caspian Movie News

Director Andrew Adamson on panel for International Achievement Award

Paul Martin — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 13:17:10 +0000

Nominations were received from nine businesses and the judging panel of New Zealand Film Commission chief executive Graeme Mason, acclaimed New Zealand film director Andrew Adamson, Screen Directors Guild executive director Anna Cahill and Television Broadcasters’ Council Rick Friesen had the challenge of narrowing the finalists down to three. Read the full story for more information.

Qantas Film And Television Awards
Inaugural International Achievement Award Finalists Announced

The finalists in the inaugural New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE) International Achievement Award, part of this year’s Qantas Film and Television Awards, were announced today.

The finalists are Natural History New Zealand, South Pacific Pictures and Flux Animation Studio.

The award is designed to recognise a business in the New Zealand film and television industries which demonstrates both commercial success in the international business arena and a commitment to developing a business model that is capable of further international expansion.

Speaking on behalf of the judges, Mr Friesen said that the range of businesses that had entered reflected the tremendous breadth of the industries and the ability of relatively small businesses to break into some large markets.

“This is the first time that we have acknowledged this kind of business success at the awards and it is genuinely inspiring to have an opportunity to look into what drives the success of some of the incredible talent that exists here,” Mr Friesen said.

The NZTE award will be presented by Prime Minister Hon John Key at the Qantas Film and Television Awards ceremony in the Civic Theatre, Auckland, on Saturday night.

The Qantas Film and Television Awards programme is jointly organised by the Screen Directors Guild of New Zealand and the New Zealand Television Broadcasters’ Council.

More information about the award can be found at the awards website www.qantasfilmandtvawards.co.nz.

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Narnia: The Exhibition premieres at the Houston Museum of Natural Science at Sugar Land in Texas

Paul Martin — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 20:24:58 +0000

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Exhibition will open at the Houston Museum of Natural Science at Sugar Land, from Oct. 3 through Jan. 18. Based on the blockbuster film series and C.S. Lewis’ beloved fictional books, the 10,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art entertainment and educational experience offers visitors the opportunity to tour scenes from the famed literary world of Narnia. Through authentic costumes, props and set dressings from the magical Narnia films, visitors will enter a three dimensional world that combines the wonders of science with aspects of fantasy.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Exhibition is presented by Walt Disney Pictures and Walden Media and is produced by Exhibitgroup/Giltspur. Tickets are on sale now at www.hmns.org or call (713) 639-4629.

“This exhibition is a truly captivating and entertaining experience for all ages,” said Eddie Newquist, President of Branded Entertainment at Exhibitgroup/Giltspur. “From the scene displays and props seen in the Narnia films, to the scientific and educational aspects of the exhibition that stimulate the senses and the mind, guests will be transported into another world to experience Narnia like never before.”

Visitors to the exhibition will view artifacts from C.S. Lewis’ personal study and experience exciting environments such as the famous attic and wardrobe. Once inside Narnia, visitors will encounter falling snow and other interactive and instructive elements including:

A replica of the White Witch’s Throne where visitors can sit on the icy throne and feel the chill. A nearby display describes the impact of climate change on our planet and investigates whether our planet could be frozen for 100 years, like the world of Narnia.

An area featuring King Miraz’s Castle from The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian where visitors have the opportunity to build an arch, while learning about the architectural structure and strategy involved in the design.

An area highlighting the mythical creatures of Narnia, which allows visitors to create their own creatures featured in the film. Three stacks of rotating, square blocks stand in three-, four- and six-foot configurations, each level featuring different aspects of a creature. By rearranging the different levels, visitors can create well-known characters from the Narnia films or mix and match the squares to create new characters.

“We are so pleased that the Houston Museum of Natural Science at Sugar Land was chosen to be the next venue to open The Chronicles of Narnia,” said Carolyn Sumners, Vice President of Astronomy and Physical Sciences. “This special exhibition is truly a unique enhancement to the grand opening of our new facility and it will be a one-of-a-kind experience for visitors of all ages.”

Tickets for the special exhibition are now on sale and include general admission in the Museum’s permanent exhibition halls at Sugar Land. Tickets may be purchased online. For tickets, or more information, visit www.hmns.org or call (713) 639-4629.

First published in 1950, more than 100 million copies of The Chronicles of Narnia series have been sold in more than 50 languages. The series’ first big-screen adaptation, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, grossed more than $745 million worldwide. The second installment in the series, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, grossed more than $410 million. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is currently in full production with an expected winter 2010 release.

The Houston Museum of Natural Science—one of the nation’s most heavily attended museums—is a centerpiece of the Houston Museum District. With four floors of permanent exhibit halls, and the Wortham IMAX® Theatre, Cockrell Butterfly Center, Burke Baker Planetarium and George Observatory and as host to world-class and ever-changing touring exhibitions, the Museum has something to delight every age group. With such diverse and extraordinary offerings, a trip to the Houston Museum of Natural Science, located at One Hermann Circle Drive in the heart of the Museum District, is always an adventure.

About Exhibitgroup/Giltspur
Exhibitgroup/Giltspur (EG) is an award-winning experiential marketing agency known for creating meaningful and memorable connections between leading companies and their customers. By producing powerful brand experiences through exhibits, events, mobile marketing tours, permanent installations, and temporary retail environments, EG helps clients accelerate the sales process, deepen brand loyalty and consistently deliver superior results. The company also creates branded entertainment experiences that surprise and delight audiences worldwide. Backed by the financial strength of its parent company, Viad Corp (NYSE: VVI), EG employs nearly 600 industry professionals in 28 client care centers throughout the world. For more information about EG, please visit www.e-g.com.

About Walden Media
Walden Media specializes in entertainment for the whole family. Past award-winning films include: “The Chronicles of Narnia” series, “Journey to the Center of the Earth,” “Nim’s Island” and “Charlotte’s Web.” Upcoming films include “Tooth Fairy” starring Dwayne Johnson and “Ramona & Beezus” starring Selena Gomez.

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Hear Imogen Heap’s Prince Caspian Soundtrack Submission ‘2-1′

Paul Martin — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 22:32:30 +0000

Karine twittered us about Imogen Heap’s new album, which is releasing August 24th or 25th depending on what part of the world you live in, called Ellipse. It includes a song called 2-1, which she wrote for Prince Caspian, but was decidedly too dark for the soundtrack, according to the music producers on the film. She decided, rather than letting good music go, to include it in her new album, which she finished a few months ago. If you would like to hear the song, or even the full album, we currently have the official music player here. The song is track #8, and it is 4 minutes and 42 seconds in length.

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NarniaFans Mailbag #44: Filming Order, Regina Spektor and Invisible Army

Paul Martin — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 17:35:44 +0000

This week has been flying by. I just remembered that it was Thursday, and that I hadn’t written this week’s mailbag. So I’m spending lunch time writing this week’s installment. I spent Tuesday riding roller coasters at Cedar Point, and around that day there were some really huge things happening in the world of Narnia. The third film started shooting, and we’ve gotten some great photos of the Dawn Treader nearing completion. I’ve got a couple of e-mails to answer this week, but before I do, I just wanted to give a status update on the secret project. I’m currently working on speed issues on it, but it’s moving forward. I have guests up from Florida so it’s going to take me a little longer than I had initially anticipated, but I hope that it’s worth the wait.

And a quick update on Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man that just came in from a woman named Barbara: “C.S. Lewis’s appreciation for Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man in correspondence is well known. Tolkien borrowed the idea for Ents from Chesterton’s The Trees of Pride! I hope these facts were brought to your attention.” Thanks Barbara!

Q: Currently, the Chronicles of Narnia are being filmed in the order that corresponds to their publication order. However, Douglas Gresham has expressed interest in filming “The Magician’s Nephew” before “The Horse and His Boy“, instead of vice-versa. What is your opinion on this?

-Skulblaka_Shur’tugal

Paul: This is a great question! I am of the opinion that, when you first read the Chronicles, you always read them in the original publication order. As far as the filming goes, however, wherever they end up shooting The Horse and His Boy, it is the one story that doesn’t really seem to matter when they shoot it. It takes place during the reign of the Pevensie children in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. They could easily shoot it prior to The Magician’s Nephew, but shooting it after could afford them some story things that carry over, giving it more weight in the Narnia film series. This series is made up of books that all take place in the same world, but they are very different from one another in substance. The filmmakers are likely to, as we have seen, invent things that provide more continuity for the sake of the audience. If they did, in fact, shoot them in that order, it would give them an opportunity to introduce something in The Magician’s Nephew that has great weight in The Last Battle and, perhaps, have the Pevensie’s part in the story during The Horse and His Boy revolve around that particular thing, in some way. It would help to make that more of a trilogy, in some ways, and when the films would eventually be viewed in chronological order by super fans like us, we might notice some through lines to the overarching story of Narnia.

But who knows, this is all conjecture that I’m thinking about only seconds before I’m typing it. A stream of consciousness about Narnia filming, I suppose. It’s really quite intriguing to think about the possibilities.

Q: Hi! Somewhere I heard that The Call was nominated for an award. When will we find out if it won it – or do we already know??? Thanks.

-Dyanthius

Paul: I could not find information about this. Does anybody know if The Call by Regina Spektor was nominated for an award? I deserved to be. It was one of the best songs on the soundtrack, if not the best. If you know more information about this, please comment below!

Q: Hey, I was just wondering if you could give me a quick rundown or if you knew any links for a brief overview of what the Invisible Army is about? I’m doing extras work on it and I’d love to know what to expect in August.

-Dee

Paul: Wow, Dee! That’s fantastic that you’re doing some extras work on the film! It’s one of my dreams that you’re fulfilling. Best of luck to you on the film, and I hope that it goes well for you. If you would like to get a great look at what Invisible Army is all about, pick up the book The Voyage of the Dawn Treader or a copy of the audio book. I believe that the audio version is about 3 hours in length. The book itself is not that long and can be read fairly quickly. I will tell you, though: it’s an epic adventure on the high seas, with many locations and troubles along the way. I don’t want to say too much about it, though you can likely find plot synopses all over the web, and you can find chapter summaries here on NarniaFans.com if you look in the book section of the site.

And that’s it for this week’s mailbag! Be sure to send in your questions by using the contact form listed on the menu.

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Andrew Adamson to direct adaptation of Mister Pip

Paul Martin — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:14:02 +0000

Andrew Adamson, who directed the previous two Narnia films: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian prior to passing the reigns to Michael Apted for the third, has just written and will direct an adaptation of the Lloyd Jones novel, Mister Pip. It is a film that is set in a province of Papua New Guinea, where director Adamson spent much of his childhood.

Producer Robin Scholes plans to have the film shot in Australia, with post-production happening in New Zealand, and sound work done in the United Kingdom.

Mister Pip will be principally set in the Papua New Guinea province of Bougainville during an ongoing war between soldiers and rebels over copper mining. It tells the story of a young girl who becomes transfixed by the Charles Dickens novel Great Expectations, which is being read at school by the only white man in the village.

“The overarching theme is the power of the human imagination to be used for both good and evil,” Scholes told ScreenDaily. “Meeting 37º South’s guests in an atmosphere in which they were not distracted by the need to sell films, was a great advantage.”

For director Andrew Adamson, growing up in Papua New Guinea gave him a personal connection to the location, which is likely a big part of why he took on that story for his next film project.

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Escape to the Kingdom of Narnia at Union Station: A New Narnia Exhibition Review

Paul Martin — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 04:18:58 +0000

I know that I’ve mentioned The Narnia Exhibition before, and quite a bit in the last year, but there’s always someone that hasn’t heard of it. I received an email the other day from someone that has visited it at Kansas City’s Union Station, and written a review of the exhibit. It’s a great exhibit, and this fan told me that she wanted to spend hours looking at the stuff that is there, especially the room with C.S. Lewis artifacts. Having seen the exhibition myself, I must concur. I really wanted to spend more time with the C.S. Lewis stuff, but knew that I had to move on.

In these trying economic times when Midwest area families can’t always afford a summer trip to Disney World, Kansas City’s Union Station has brought Disney to the Midwest!Welcome, Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Exhibition, now ensconced at Kansas City’s Union Station through August 23, is a 10,000-square foot, state-of-the-art, highly interactive entertainment and educational exhibit, featuring over 150 original film creatures, set dressings, costumes, and props from “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” and “Prince Caspian” movies.

Read the rest at The Examiner

Read more about The Narnia Exhibition

Ben Barnes talks Promotional Tours and Prince Caspian

Paul Martin — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:46:36 +0000

Ben Barnes is a very down to earth guy, and provides a really good example of what he went through on the promotional tour for Prince Caspian. He mentions New York, where I saw him about four out of the seven days that I was there, and sometimes twice in one day, so I can attest to what he says about his experience there.

It can be hard work being a Hollywood hero. Just ask Ben Barnes, a.k.a. Prince Caspian, star of the billion-dollar-grossing Chronicles of Narnia franchise.

There’s the grinding tour of world premieres (”Travelling for three months, sitting on your own in a hotel room in Taiwan, thinking, ‘what am I doing here?’ Just weird.”) and the red-carpet appearances where your every move is greeted by an electric storm of flashbulbs (”I don’t think there’s any way of ever being comfortable with it. You put on a perma-grin, which is so unnatural, and the lights make you squint. I get very anxious.”). There’s the frankly disconcerting experience of seeing your very own toy action figurine for the first time. “My own was absolutely awful, shamefully bad. I was a bit upset by that. How many times do you get an action figure made of you? Mine looked like a cross between Adrien Brody and Javier Bardem – but ill.” There’s the tireless and tiresome conveyor belt of press junkets and interviews.

“They take as much out of you as filming does”, sniffs Barnes. “I thought, ‘it’s only chatting, how hard can it be?’” As it turned out, the New York round of Prince Caspian promotion very nearly wiped this swashbuckling regent out: he did 90 interviews in one day, woke up the next with no voice and found he had to do 70 more, dosed up on a cocktail of vitamin C, honey and lemon, and Chinese potions. “I didn’t really have a choice. The film was called Prince Caspian, there was no hiding.” Appearing on Jay Leno’s sofa was a rare highlight. “Have you seen it? It’s definitely the best interview I’ve done…”

[...]

Today, arriving at his agent’s office and blaming his late arrival on the Piccadilly line, Barnes doesn’t really look like a star. Tall and slim and dressed in a white T-shirt, leather jacket, jeans and biker boots, he’s sporting some patchy stubble and “ridiculous” long hair in preparation for the [Chronicles of Narnia]: Voyage of the Dawn Treader shoot in July (”I do not want extensions again.”).

[...]

It has not always been an easy ride; Barnes already has one dispute under his belt, when he left The History Boys six months into its West End run to play Caspian, annoying the National Theatre. “I’m still hugely regretful about it and I still haven’t heard a peep out of them. I didn’t feel like I was leaving anyone in the lurch but I did feel like I was letting people down. And I felt like I was going to vomit for three and a half weeks between getting Prince Caspian and leaving. It was always my dream to work at the National: I’d been going there with my Dad since I was 10. I’d love to round it off one day by going back. It’s still the most gratifying job I’ve ever done.”

Prince Caspian, he implies, was not quite so gratifying. “It’s more to do with the contrast between the marketing and what I was asked to do. I was trying to do this awkward character who wasn’t sure he wanted the responsibility of being a leader. I don’t think that tested so well, so they tried to tweak him into a hero.” Did they Hollywood-ise him? “Just a little. Yeah. Which is completely fair and it made a lot of money so they know what they’re doing. But at the same time, as you can see by all my other choices, it’s not particularly what I’m going for. I want to play characters that are interesting to watch.”

-via The Independent

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Prince Caspian Concept Artist Nominated for Chesley Award

Paul Martin — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 06:08:27 +0000

It’s been more than a year since the release of Prince Caspian, and it’s just been nominated for an award. More specifically, concept artist Justin Sweet has been nominated for Best Product Illustration for The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. The Chelsey Awards are given for excellence in science fiction and fantasy art or illustration. The awards have been presented since 1985 and are run by the Association for Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists (ASFA). The awards were named after the artist Chesley Bonestell after his death in 1986. They are presented at the World Science Fiction Convention. The convention will take place in Montréal, Québec, to be held Thursday 6 August – Monday 10 August, 2009.

Here is an example of the artwork painted by Justin Sweet for Prince Caspian. Very impressive art. Congrats, Justin!

-Chesley Awards 2009

NarniaFans Mailbag #39: Dawn Treader Trailers, Stunts and More

Paul Martin — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 03:34:26 +0000

Sorry that this week’s mailbag is a day late. I had some business to attend to. Namely, there were ghosts to be busted, and I was the best Ghostbuster for the job. On Tuesday, a game that I had been waiting for most of my life to play was finally released. Not only that, but it was released in roughly three variations, two of which I know for sure used the actors from the original movies. Ghostbusters The Video Game was released for most systems, of which I got it for Xbox 360 and Wii as well as DS. I have beaten the game on the 360, and just started playing the Wii version, which is a very different experience from the 360 version so far. And I’ve loved almost every minute of it, save for some small problems, and the difficulty level of the game when sometimes, even on easy. When I was 8 or 9, I went to the arcade (!) to play the Ghostbusters game, only to be disappointed by it for not having a similar style of play to that of the movie, and it’s about time they’ve made the game that I dreamed up at such a young age. But this isn’t what you’re here to read about, you want to hear answer to Narnia fan mail, so here we go.

Q: Why was the second trailer for “Prince Caspian” released only 2-3 weeks before the film hit theaters? If I remember correctly, the second trailer for LWW was out two months in advance of the film, and we got the nine-minute super trailer not long after.

That’s the end of my question. I hope they do a better job of trailers on VDT. I saw “Baby Mama” a week before “Prince Caspian” last year, and the theater was still using the teaser trailer. I never got to see trailer #2 on the big screen!

-Mike

Paul: That was part of the mis-calculation of the promoters of the film. They did a big event for the first Caspian trailer, which we were a part of, and then the second one was next to nothing. It seemed like they had, perhaps, decided to cut bait. But perhaps it really took them that long to get the second trailer ready.

One other theory that I have is the movies released early in the year don’t tend to pull in a lot of people, and they were waiting to launch it with the movies that would have the greatest possible impact. They could have, for instance, attached the trailer to Iron Man a couple of week’s prior to the release of the film, at that point.

Either way, however, I have no idea why they did things the way they did with film two. Perhaps they didn’t feel it’d have as big an impact as the first film, and that contributed to the level of effort used in the marketing.

Anyone else have some theories on this to contribute?

Q: Hi! I, like most Narnia fans, am really looking forward to “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader“. As most fans know, the filming has been set back several months, but is currently set for late July. If this schedule is kept, have you any idea when we can expect the official trailer? For “Prince Caspian“, it was about ten months. Is this standard for movies?

-Reepicheep, Knight of Narnia

Paul: With movies, there really is no standard for a trailer. The first teaser for The Last Airbender is attached to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen this month, and the movie is scheduled for July 2, 2010. It seems that one year tends to be typical of bigger movies, while 3-6 months for smaller films. With Prince Caspian, the first trailer was released in the December prior to the release of the film, roughly six months. I believe what you were talking about is the set videos. We’re not sure, really, when we’ll start to see trailers for the film, but I’d expect that they will want to start creating awareness in December of this year. So I’d expect to see something this year, with a ramp up happening throughout 2010.

Q: Hi, Paul! This is a two-part question. In ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe‘ did William, Anna, Skandar, and Georgie have stunt or size doubles? How much of the movie do you think that these four actually did? As for the second part, it’s basically the same question only for ‘Prince Caspian‘: did the four ‘Pevensies’ and Ben have doubles? I know that William did most of his own stuff. Thanks a lot.

-Tarwe, the Narnian Elf

Paul: In both movies, as is typical of big films with action sequences, they all had stunt doubles. Not really size doubles, as that only tends to apply with movies that include things such as Hobbits, as far as I know. Sure, they’d do as much as they could, but for insurance purposes, there are big reasons for having the stunt doubles. If anything should happen, they save hundreds of millions in re-shoots and re-casting. I can’t really say percentages, as I wasn’t on set for the shoot, but I do know that they all wanted to do their own stunts from time to time, and they all got their chance, something that I’m really happy about, for them.

And that’s it for this week’s mailbag. That was short, but with good reason. My sister has Thyroid Cancer, and needs prayers that her surgery goes well, and I have a friend, who is pregnant, has to get her apendix out, and something might be wrong with her liver, too. So, that being said, keep sending the e-mails and commenting.

As for the secret project, I suppose I’ll give one more clue, but asking a question like “what is the secret project?” is a cleaver approach that will get you nowhere. Anyway, the secret project is web-based.

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Producer Mark Johnson Talks Narnia

Mike — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 02:43:16 +0000

Mark Johnson, producer on “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,” “Prince Caspian,” and “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” is featured in a brief entertainment news piece in the Calgary Sun.

Regarding the first two Narnia films, Johnson said, “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe worked phenomenally well and Prince Caspian worked very well. It’s funny it’s seen in a different light (but it still made) just under half a billion dollars.”

Johnson also comments that he looks forward to working on “Dawn Treader,” due in theaters in December 2010. The full article is available at the Calgary Sun’s website. Scroll down to the heading that reads “Third Time Lucky?”

Narnia Fans » Prince Caspian Movie News

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