Narnia Fans » Summer

A highly competitive film season is weighing on the returns of “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian,” Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Robert Iger said at an analyst conference Wednesday.

Speaking at the Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference, Iger said the second installment in the “Narnia” series is not doing as well as the first, nor as well as Disney officials had hoped.

Iger pointed out that the movie business is a crowded field, and the marketplace can’t always accommodate all the releases that a studio puts out.

“I think there are too many movies being released in the marketplace,” Iger said, later adding, “It’s a very delicate, very fragile marketplace.”

“Prince Caspian” was released May 16 and has made an estimated $146 million in worldwide receipts thus far. But the movie’s production costs are estimated at $200 million. In order to turn a profit in theaters alone, “Prince Caspian” would have to make roughly $500 million worldwide when marketing costs are included. The film is expected to have a home video life, however.

Iger says this latest installment is a better film than the first in the series, “The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” which debuted during the 2006 Christmas season. That film went on to make $744.8 million worldwide on a production budget of $180 million.

But the first “Narnia” film benefited from more favorable scheduling. “Prince Caspian” was sandwiched between two high-profile releases from Viacom Inc.’s Paramount Pictures unit — “Iron Man,” with $487.8 million in worldwide returns since its May 2 debut, and eagerly awaited “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” The latter film was released Thursday and has made roughly $300 million worldwide thus far.

Read the rest at Marketwatch

Fandango’s Vacation on Location Summer Movie Guide ‘08 has an article on the one place all Narnia fans plan on visiting…. NARNIA. Of all the summer movie lists, this is by far one of the best. It contains more then just a brief summary, but it includes some stunning pictures from the new film, and some behind the scenes information as well.

Here is a brief excerpt:

At New Zealand’s Cathedral Cove, Peter, Lucy, Susan and Edmund break into a run, tossing off their coats and shoes to get into the warm waters. Re-shoots were needed for continuity, so the children had to get out of the water, dry off, put on the same wardrobe, and get wet all over again.

The crew also ran into a few problems with enthusiastic locals. A publicist announced on a local radio station that they were filming there, and asked everyone not to interfere. Naturally, Narnia fans did just the opposite.  In one scene, Lucy looks out on the spectacular view of the island and a local’s boat was in the shot, which had to be edited out.

You can read the rest of the article at Fandango.com

NarniaFans, let’s hope you’ve made your travel plans! This is going to be one great summer!

The summer movie season officially began Thursday night with the bumped-up debut of Iron Man, yet another in a long line of comic-book-based blockbusters in the making.

Anything short of $70 million at the box office this weekend may be considered a disappointment.

But this summer has a tough act to follow — last summer.

More than $4.1 billion was grossed (financially speaking) between May and Labor Day in 2007, the first summer ever to eclipse the mark. It did so on the shoulders of four movies that made more than $300 mill each, sequels all — Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, Spider-Man 3, Shrek the Third and Transformers.

Can an aging Indiana Jones, Matrix-ized Speed Racer, dim-witted Maxwell Smart, …. or returns to Narnia and Gotham City possibly come close?

Who knows?

For this unapologetic moviegoer, it’s not about how much money a movie makes, it’s about whether the movie is any good. Whether this summer’s batch of big-budget blockbusters satisfy remains to be seen…..

-The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince of Caspian (May 16): It’s been three years since the first installment of C.S. Lewis’ spiritual fantasy “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” introduced movie audiences to the three Pevensie kids. Now it’s 1,300 years later (one year in our time), and they help the titular young heir who rebels against his evil uncle.

The Calgary Herald has an article giving a brief look at the big blockbusters of the summer. Of course, Prince Caspian is listed among them.

Here is what they say:

“The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. “Everything you know is about to change forever.”

The sequel, based on the novel by C.S. Lewis, sees the Pevensie children return to Narnia 1,300 years after their last visit to save the prince. May 16.

Click the source link to her their …satirical take on it’s tagline, as well as those of the competition.

The eagerly-awaited Narnia movie sequel from the series of children’s books written by Belfast-born author CS Lewis is set to be one of the blockbuster’s of the summer.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is due for release in the US next month where cinemas are already planning early screenings from midnight on Friday, May 16, to meet the expected demand.

The multi-million pound film — the follow-up to The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe — is scheduled for release in the UK in June.

The movie, featuring Ulster actor Liam Neeson as the voice of the godlike Aslan, is expected to be the box office smash of the summer, even out-stripping The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, which took an estimated $393m worldwide in 2005.

In the second of CS Lewis’ fantasy books to be made into a film, the four Pervensie children — Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy — return to Narnia to aid the young Prince Caspian in his struggle for the throne against his corrupt uncle King Miraz.

Caspian uses Susan’s magic horn that was left in Narnia to summon the four Pevensies to help him and a small army of Old Narnians reclaim his rightful throne.

Work on the script began before The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe was released, so filming could begin before the actors grew too old for their parts.

Shooting began in February last year in New Zealand, but the majority of filming took place in Eastern Europe.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian was originally scheduled for release in December last year but was postponed to allow special effects to be completed.

Michael McAdam, of Movie House Cinemas, said: “We are really looking forward to the new Narnia movie. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe was hugely popular in Northern Ireland when it came out at Christmas in 2005 and many children saw it not just once, but two and three times.

“Prince Caspian looks equally as good and of course, our own Liam Neeson provides the voice of Aslan.

“It’s brilliant to see some family films coming into the cinema for early as it has been a really quiet April for kids’ films.

“We kick off the busy season with the fourth Indiana Jones movie on May 22, then Narnia is out on June 26. But the summer families can also look forward to King Fu Panda, Disney’s WALL-E, the new Batman movie The Dark Knight and the Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon. It looks like a great summer at the cinema.”