Plans for Narnia Sequel Develop; Director Confirmed
Plans for the upcoming sequel to the blockbuster The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, continue to develop with director Andrew Adamson confirmed to return as the film’s director.
Corrections appended
Plans for Prince Caspian, the upcoming sequel to the blockbuster The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, continue to develop with director Andrew Adamson confirmed to return as the film’s director.
“To me, the most exciting aspect of all of this is that there is so much that Andrew wanted to express and do in the first film, and now he’ll have a chance to,” Walden Media co-founder and CEO Cary Granat told the Hollywood Reporter.
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Along with directing the film, Adamson will also serve as producer and co-writer, collaborating with returning scribes Christopher Markus and Steve McFeely.
Also returning for Caspian will be the four Pevensie children as well as Aslan, who, according to Sony Pictures Imageworks’ Bill Westenhofer, may not look the same as in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (LWW).
“Well, reading through the books, there are some evolutions,” Westenhofer told Zap2It.com. “It’s one of the challenges described in the text is that he does increase in size. At one point he’s finally [referenced to be] the size of an elephant. That’s where interpretations of the filmmaking come in play.”
Caspian, which is the fourth book in the seven-book series written by C.S. Lewis, finds the four Pevensie children pulled back into the land of Narnia, where more than 1,000 years have passed since they left. The children are again enlisted to join the colorful creatures of Narnia, who have been driven into the wild, unfriendly parts of the land. The Pevensies must struggle to overthrow a usurping king named Miraz and restore the rightful heir to the throne, the young Prince Caspian.
Visual effects supervisor Dean Wright, nominated for an Oscar for his work in LWW, says that viewers can expect a lot of new creatures and even bigger battle sequences for Caspian.
“There’s new hero creatures, specifically Badger and his mouse Reepicheep,” Wright told Sci Fi Wire. “Again, there’s huge battle sequences. I know from talking to Andrew just briefly before he left: He wants to make this bigger and better than ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.’ So I can only imagine what’s in store for any of us that happen to be lucky enough to be involved.”
But while things may be getting bigger in Caspian, Wright says that his guiding principle will be the same as before.
“Realism,” Wright told Sci Fi Wire. “Make the characters look real. Make them feel real. Make their acting [real] … Make the moments memorable, and create a heck of a movie.”
Caspian is currently scheduled for a Christmas 2007 release.
Meanwhile, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe continues to make box office headlines, having grossed more than $637.8 million since its Dececember 2005 release and ranking as Buena Vista’s top grossing live-action release of all time. A large portion of the film’s success has been attributed to church-goers attracted to the elements of faith found throughout the movie.
Correction: Friday, February 24, 2006:
An article on Thursday, Feb. 23, 2006, about the upcoming sequel to the blockbuster The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe incorrectly reported that Prince Caspian was the second book in the seven-book series written by C.S. Lewis and that 1,000 years had passed since the Pevensie children were last in the land of Narnia. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian was the fourth boook in the series and takes place 1,303 Narnian years after the childrern's last visit.
