The secret history of why Disney dumped 'Narnia'

On the night before Christmas, when all of Hollywood was in Aspen or Hawaii on vacation, Disney quietly announced that it was bailing out on the "Chronicles of Narnia" franchise that the studio had co-financed and co-produced with Phil Anschutz's Walden Media. I was blissfully snoozing on the beach when the story broke in the trades myself, so it was only after I started analyzing Disney's 2008 for our continuing Studio Report Card series that I realized what a shocker it was. Totaled together, the first two "Narnia" films grossed nearly $1.2 billion around the world, making it one of the most successful box-office franchises in recent years.

So why would Disney walk away from such a valuable property? The back story is complicated, to say the least. The obvious reason was that compared to the astounding success of the first film, 2005's "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," which amassed nearly $750 million in global business, the second film in the series, 2008's "Prince Caspian," was a big disappointment, grossing roughly $420 million. Still, $420 million is nothing to sneeze at, being way more money than any Disney film, except for "Wall-E," made all year.

But it turns out that "Prince Caspian" didn't just bring in less money, but it cost more to make and market--a lot more. Disney acknowledges that the film cost roughly $225 million, with nearly $100 million of that going for the film's elaborate special effects. Even worse, because the studio was trying to expand the series' audience by going after teen moviegoers as well as families, Disney overspent on marketing, with some insiders estimating that the studio spent as much as $175 million on worldwide marketing for the film.

But what really derailed Disney's involvement with "Narnia" was a nasty feud between the studio and Phil Anschutz, the real estate baron and supporter of Christian conservative causes who seems to own half of America. Anschutz has a stake in or outright ownership of Regal Entertainment Group (the nation's biggest movie theater chain),  Staples Center, the Kodak Theatre, the Los Angeles Galaxy, the L.A. Kings, London's Millennium Dome, a string of U.S. newspapers (including the San Francisco Examiner) and Walden Media, which has produced such films as "Journey to the Center of the Earth," "Nim's Island" and "Because of Winn-Dixie." So when Anschutz gets into an ugly dispute with Disney, we're talking about a true battle of the titans.

What happened? Keep reading: 

According to multiple sources, the once-close relationship between Disney and Walden began to unravel when, after the first "Narnia" film cleaned up at the box office, Anschutz essentially put a gun to Disney's head and demanded that the studio renegotiate its deal with Walden. Anschutz insisted that Disney either gave back a sizable chunk of the studio's lucrative distribution fee or Anschutz would distribute the "Narnia" series on his own. Believing the franchise was too good to give up, Disney reluctantly changed the terms of its Walden deal, but the renegotiation poisoned relations between the two behemoths. When the second film faltered, there was so little good will left over that Disney had far less qualms about cutting its ties with the franchise.

To be fair, Walden wasn't all that happy with the way Disney handled the film. The first movie had been released at Christmas, which seemed a logical slot for a family-oriented picture. But when Disney saw that "Prince Caspian" was an edgier, more youth-oriented film, it decided to go after teenagers as well as family filmgoers. That decision led to what, in hindsight, appears to be a huge blunder, releasing "Prince Caspian" in May, at the start of summer. Sandwiched between "Iron Man" and "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," "Prince Caspian" not only failed to attract many teenagers, but it lost a large piece of its family following, who were turned off by the edgier, not especially well-focused marketing materials.

"We felt that, for that film, we had to try to appeal to every audience," says Disney studio chief Dick Cook. "The movie was edgier and tougher and the marketing materials reflected that. Sometimes when you do that, you risk alienating the families and maybe that's what happened." Cook defended the studio's decision to put the movie into the summer. "Warners has always been able to move 'Harry Potter' back and forth, so we thought we had just as good a chance of doing well. Honestly, who knows--it may have been a factor. In the summertime, you don't get always get many second chances. But release dates are funny--they never seem to effect a movie people really want to see." 

Walden is moving ahead with plans to make a third book in the series, "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader," which will have a new director, Michael Apted, at the helm but much of the cast, including Ben Barnes (Prince Caspian), from the previous films. The book is said to be far more commercial than the last installment, being more of a classic boy's seagoing adventure story, complete with fantastic sights, dragons, wizards and sea serpents, not to mention Eustace Scrubb, who I hear on good authority is one of the most inspired rotten kids in English literature. The real fascinating question is: Who will release it? Walden could announce a new deal as early as later this week.

It doesn't have a lack of suitors. The studio with the inside track is 20th Century Fox, which has first dibs on the project, since it already markets and distributes Walden projects under its Fox-Walden banner. Fox has plenty of interest, having seriously considered acquiring the movie rights to the C.S. Lewis books even before Walden originally landed the franchise. Fox has a strong marketing department, with lot of success with family entertainment--the studio's biggest hits last year were both family films, "Horton Hears a Who" and the year-ending "Marley & Me."

But Fox is famous for driving hard bargains and exercising fiscal discipline, so don't expect to see "Dawn Treader" costing anywhere near $225 million. Walden has been aiming to bring the new film in at around $140 million, which would be a far more enticing price tag for a 50/50 studio partner. If Fox passes, both Sony and Warners have expressed strong interest in the project. It would be a good fit for either studio, giving Sony something it hasn't had in recent years--a fantasy-oriented family franchise, while it could provide Warners with a ready-made family-oriented franchise to replace the soon-to-be completed "Harry Potter" series. Whatever happens, it seems likely that "Narnia" fans will soon have another chance to visit the enchanted world of Narnia and other distant lands.

Photo: Sergio Castellitto in "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian." Photo credit: Dieny Enterprises/Walden Media

DISNEY BLUNDERS IN DUMPING "NARNIA" SERIES:

Comments

[Jonathan]

With the first movie they got things right, they were faithful to the novel and captured Lewis' magic touch. They also released it at Christmas. With Caspian it was blunder after blunder, they sandwich it between Iron Man and Indiana Jones and deviate too much from the novel, replacing wonder with war movie.

[louis]

this might interest all NARNIA fans.

another, albeit unusual, C S Lewis documentary film, THE NARNIA CODE has been commissioned by BBC & is due to be shown this Easter, 2009. the film is based on Michael Ward's book NARNIA LAND, published by Oxford University Press.

the producer/ director is Norman Stone/ 1A Productions. that team gave us SHADOWLANDS, another BBC film a few years ago. Stone is also producer of many of the BBC Agatha Christie MISS MARPLE films. last year his film on FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE was shown on BBC.

perhaps BBC America may show it also?

[Mark]

I chalk up Prince Caspian's underwhelming box office (though $400 million+ is nothing to sneeze at in this economy!!) primarily due to the release date and poor marketing campaign. I don't know where they managed to spend $175 million because I hardly saw any ads for PC compared to Iron Man or Indiana Jones. Either those films had $300 million marketing budgets, or they were just smarter with how they spent the money. In that sense, good riddance to Disney since it seems they were only brought on board in the first case to market these films, which they botched. What ever happened to marketing the movies in bible belt churches (Passion of the Christ marketing model) which paid off for the 1st movie?

There's no question in most viewer's or critic's minds that Caspian was a far superior movie compared to LWW. This should be worth double credit since the Caspian story is a more difficult movie to make, and also less well known (another reason for the underperformance - not the fault of the film-makers). The physicality and visceral feel of the battles in the Prince Caspian film should have netted it an academy award nomination for visual effects compared to the first movie which felt way too CGI-ish. It was as close to a noir fantasy film as you can get, and perhaps just two months ahead of its time, now that Dark Knight and the economic meltdown has whetted people's appetite for these kinds of darker movies.

Well, no matter what happens, no matter what kind of low-budget, child-friendly mess the new studio turns Dawntreader into (my favourite of the books!), they can't take my Prince Caspian DVD away from me, which will probably stand forever as the best film made about a C.S. Lewis work.

[Nick]

I Have to say, I agree with some of you who think that lowering the budget is a huge mistake. I think it will force them to make a less edjier version of the series and that would be a shame, becasue I think P.C was an awesome film, even better than the first in many ways. I think the reason I enjoyed it even more was the fact that it was a little more adult while keeping true to it's child like spirit.
And the minor changes that were made really didn't bug me that much at all. Such as the flirtation between P. Caspian and Susan. I think that only added to the film and made a way to bring in a more mature audiance as well. Now if they would have taken things further with them that would have been a mistake but doing the little bit that they did really didn't hurt or change the story. I really believe that the changes that were made added to and didn't detract from the movie.
I also think that which ever studio ends up taking over the series needs pay whatever it takes to make this a successful film series.

[JC]

Some people have refered to Lewis's "aesthetic." Both films have failed to grasp Lewis's concept of the numinous--or, as he would put it, _sehnsucht_. The old BBC/WonderWorks TV movies may have had cheesy special effects, but they captured the mystery and beauty of Narnia, from their soft and haunting theme music to the flittering animated fairies. The Walden movies have touched on it in points: Lucy's dream in PC with the dancing petals, for exapmle. But one of my most vivid memories of the very first time I read _Prince Caspian_--and one of the most important moments in the book--is the beautiful dance that Caspian witnesses during his first night with the True Narnians: it sets up the whole point of what they're fighting for. Walden does an excellent job capturing the scenes with the opposite effect (e.g., the attempted resurrection of Jadis).

Another important one is LWW, with Aslan's resurrection: the book spends a great deal of time describing how Aslan renews the land and how he revives all the people turned to statues, particularly in the palace. "Giant Rumblebuffin!" For a movie franchise seeking a diverse population of named characters to make into action figures, LWW was a missed opportunity.

I didn't think Disney would stick around past PC, though, because Voyage of the Dawn Treader is, pun intended very un-PC. The Christian themes of the books never fully hit me till VDT, and then they hit me big time.

One of the greatest lines ever (echoing the distaste of Clive Staples Lewis for his own name:)
"There once was a boy named Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he deserved it."

[cbk16]

Crazy that a movie that rakes in 420 million is considered a flop. Did Disney hire old Enron accountants to do the budget?

[rob]

I am of two minds with this drive to CGI every fantasy epic. On the one hand, it's got to be some sort of Cliff Notes version, or it won't translate well to the big screne [a la HPotter], or it's got to be a serial version, thus cheap or animated. I like some of the miniseries versions and low budget versions of fantasies, as they focus on interpersonal relations, not CGI.

[Movie Fan]

Prince Caspian was an AMAZING film. The story telling was powerful and didn't play kids games with deep material. The people who went away complaining about all the special effects and action scenes missed out on the difficult issues that the film was REALLY about!

ONE OF THE BEST MOVIES IN A LONG TIME. I liked the first but it was like cotton candy next to the full course meal of PC!

Seriously - see the DVD if you missed seeing it. You will be in for a pleasant surprise.

[monica]

I'm a huge fan of the Narnia books and have dreamt for years of seeing them turned into movies. The 1st book LWW is considered the best of the series and the film was perfect, Disney & Adams hit it out of the ballfield. I think Prince Caspian is the weakest book of the series and that could have been part of the problem with the box office, but I was still looking forward to seeing it, but summer was the worst time for release, it couldnt compete with fickle teens and a blockbuster coming out every week, I never saw it because it disappeared too fast. When I eventually saw it on dvd, I barely recognized it because they had changed the story to add more battles and romance, bleah! If Walden & Fox insist on trying to turn Narnia into another Lord of the Rings series they're in trouble, cuz these books are not "battle" or romance heavy and they risk turning off the core Narnia fans (there are a lot) and probably a lot of families too. I'm really looking forward to #3 VTD to see how they will create all the amazing things that happen on that voyage, but its taking too long to get these movies out, I'm going to be dead before the last movie in this series hits theaters.

[Mangolite]

I do hope all the books in the Narnia series get made. I love the books and enjoyed the first two film adaptations, and just like the books, the films has different take and adventure, unlike the Harry Potter series, which focused on a single main protagonist from youth to adolescent. The Narnia Chronicles have different protagonists as the story progresses and not to mention that one of the adventure all took place within Narnia during the reign of the Penvensies as Kings and Queens. Even when the last battle was fought, Lewis re-illiterate with a prequel, back to the beginning of Narnia with none other than Digory, the professor from the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Therefore, the Narnian series are much more vast and enriching, encompassing a lot of themes and adventures. Go Walden. Keep it coming with FOX and whoever else wants to bring Narnia to life.