Narnia 4: The Magician's Nephew or the Silver Chair?

In a recent interview for Family Life Radio's "Inside Out," Micheal Flaherty talked about the Chronicles of Narnia, the books and films. Check out the transcript below, courtesy of NarniaWeb.

IO: [Dawn Treader] started out very slowly in the United States.
MF: "Yeah, very slow. Made for an agonizing opening weekend."

IO: What do you think went on? Why do you think it was so slow?
MF: "People are just so busy at Christmas time. And we in Hollywood are so ego-centric. We feel like everyone can just drop everything they have, all their family commitments, all their Christmas commitments and dedicate themselves to seeing a movie on opening day. And we're real impatient. But, eventually the movie stayed in the theaters and ended up doing really well. We were pleased with it."

IO: It did much better overseas, didn't it?
MF: "Three times what it did here. It's quite a puzzle, and it's fun because there's so little research that's done in Hollywood. You're free to just forward as many theories as you want. And, I don't really know why the disparity is. What's interesting in the United States is, ticket sales almost exactly mirror the book sales. So the number of people who saw The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. And the book sales are half. The people who sawDawn Treader was about a third less than the people who saw Prince Caspian. And the book sales are about a third less."

IO: Prince Caspian was a bit darker and grim and violent.
MF: "Yeah, and this is the paradox when you want to do faithful adaptations. That book is a dark war kind of novel. And we actually pulled back a little. In one scene, Peter beheads a couple of people [laughs]. At the end they run into some Greek gods who give everybody wine and they get drunk. So it's amazing because I think a lot of us, in our minds, have this perfect image of these Narnia books because we grew up with them. But there are some elements in there that are a little tough, and Caspian is the darkest, and Silver Chair is pretty dark too -- physically and tonally. A lot of it takes place underground. That's why, for the next one, we're really hoping to go in the direction of The Magician's Nephew."

IO: You talk about mirroring the book sales. The Magician's Nephew was the second-highest seller of the series, wasn't it?
MF: "Yes. And pretty close, sort of nipping at the heels of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe . It's amazing and it's a great origin story. And I like the way that Lewis did it and that's what we're trying to do with our film, which is: You actually start in the middle of the story, so then when you tell the origin it's much more interesting. You can say to yourself, 'That's where the lamp-post came from!'"

IO: Oh yeah, you can connect the dots on that which is always a lot of fun. What about production schedule and all of that? Do you have a script for this yet?
MF: "No, we don't. We're still in our conversations right now with 20^th Century Fox, and the C.S. Lewis Estate who own the rights to all the books. So, we're all trying to come to an agreement about which film to do next and how to film it. So, we're waiting to see where that goes."

What Flaherty said about The Voyage of the Dawn Treader's box office sales sounds ridiculous. It's almost like he doesn't know the real reasons for its low domestic performance. Neither do most fans really, since Christmas is an excellent time to release a film. Everyone suffered last winter at the box office, not just Narnia. Yet Dawn Treader performed very well overseas. The same is true for the DVD and Blu-Ray releases. Dawn Treader is doing poorly nationwide, but very well overseas. Maybe the reasons have something to do with the strength of the US dollar (here and worldwide) and Fox's poor domestic marketing of the film --rather than potential moviegoers avoiding theaters because of Christmas shopping and family duties.

Was Prince Caspian the book dark? Yes. Was the Walden/Disney movie dark? Yes. I'm not convinced they had the same amount of darkness but it was there. Yet this is not a bad thing. God allows darkness to show us light. Dawn Treader the film was actually darker than the book, especially the end fight with the sea serpent. The green mist was also rather disturbing. But again, the darkness was essential to plot, character, and theme (temptation) -- to show us light. By comparison, The Silver Chair (SC) is not that dark spiritually. Maybe The Magician's Nephew (MN) is even lighter, but does any of this matter? No. Whatever darkness is in the books mirrors a fallen world, even in Narnia. Lewis knew what he was doing when he wrote them.

It sounds to me like Walden Media wants to make MN next because of money -- not book logic (plot and character continuity) or love of the franchise. MN is closest to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (LWW) in book sales. It also has a lot of the magic readers find in LWW and Dawn Treader. Yet all Walden Media really wants to do is repeat LWW's box office performance. I think this is why they emphasized "the magic is back!" in their marketing of Dawn Treader last fall. Everyone wants the magic of LWW back -- the money/box office magic.

Whichever book the production chooses to adapt as the next Narnia film will show their real interest in the franchise. If they choose MN, they love money. If they choose SC, they love Narnia.

So which is it, Walden Media (and Micheal Flaherty)? Magician's Nephew or Silver Chair? Money or love? Narnia fans everywhere are watching you.