‘Chronicles Of Narnia’ Will Come Back To Theaters With ‘The Silver Chair’
Fans of the C.S. Lewis book and film series The Chronicles of Narnia can rejoice as a new film will be coming to theaters soon. Although the Inquisitr reported months ago that producer Mark Gordon stated that The Silver Chair would be in development soon, today TriStar Pictures officially announced the reprisal.
According to Deadline, the Chronicles of Narnia series is back into development with TriStar Pictures (a division of Sony) coming alongside The Mark Gordon Company, The C.S. Lewis Company, and eOne. The Silver Chair, the fourth book in the series, is being adapted by David Magree, screenwriter for Life of Pi. Lewis’ own stepson, Douglas Gresham, will serve as a producer.
“It’s been both fun and exciting to work with Mark Gordon and David Magee to develop the next ‘Narnian’ movie, and now it’s a thrill to welcome Tristar to our Narnia family. I greatly look forward to plunging again into the joys and challenges of once more bringing Narnia to the screen, this time with the wonderful story of The Silver Chair,” said Gresham.
Gordon echoed the sentiments, saying, “Developing this project with The C.S. Lewis Company has been immensely exciting and a real joy. We are so pleased to team up with our good friends at TriStar and our partners at eOne to introduce this new, magical chapter of the Narnia franchise to fans around the world, both old and new.”
The ‘Chronicles of Narnia’ film series is rebooting with ‘The Silver Chair’: https://t.co/YSDrnq4tLS pic.twitter.com/wLGURL36Ov
— Entertainment Weekly (@EW) August 10, 2016
“Reading The Chronicles of Narnia was one of the formative experiences of my childhood, just as it has been for children around the world for generations,” said Tri-Star’s Hannah Minghella. “To have the opportunity to bring new life to the Narnia films with a new creative team is a career highlight. Our mission is to build TriStar Pictures as a home for filmmaker-driven literary and commercial movies, and this film represents a huge step forward for us. We’re thrilled to be working with Mark, Doug, Melvin, Vincent, and David as we adapt The Silver Chair.”
Originally, Disney had planned on producing the full seven-story series of Chronicles of Narnia. The first, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was produced in 2005. According to IMDb, it had a budget of $180,000,000 and grossed $291,709,845. The second, 2008’s Prince Caspian, didn’t fare as well even though some critics thought the film was superior to the first. Prince Caspian had a much bigger budget ($225,000,000) but grossed much less ($141,614,023). That was enough for Disney and the full project was dropped.
The third installment, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, was distributed by 20th Century Fox in 2010 with a much lower budget of $155,000,000. Unfortunately, it suffered a similar fate bringing in just $104,383,624. Still, TriStar has hopes that new movie magic can revive the series.
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The first two Narnia movies starred William Moseley, Anna Popplewell, Skandar Keynes, and Georgie Henley as the four Pevensie siblings who wandered through a magical wardrobe and found themselves in the land of Narnia. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader only features two of the Pevensie children (Lucy, played by Henley, and Edmund, played by Keynes) with the addition of cousin Eustace Scrubb (Will Poulter). For the new Chronicles of Narnia movie, it is said to follow Eustace and his trip back in Narnia with his friend Jill Pole and new character Puddleglum in an attempt to rescue King Caspian’s son, Rilian. It is unclear if Poulter will reprise his role.
In the earlier report, Gordon said that the new movie will actually be a reboot of the series and not have any affiliation to the previous three films, but it’s unclear how different the tone and style of the new film will be compared to the first three. As of yet, no release date has been set.
[Photo by Koichi Kamoshida/Getty Images]
