Sure to fire up some controversy, much as the novels have, the sixth volume of the Chronicles of Naria books by C.S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew, has been selected as the source material for the fourth film that will be getting underway. The Narnia movies, which began in 2005 under collaboration with Disney before shifting to Fox last year, has had a decent if unspectacular run where the $545 million investment has brought in just over $1.5 billion in theatrical receipts, not including home video, broadcast and merchandising.
According to a report from Walden Media co-founder and president, Michael Flaherty, they’ve got the funding for the next book to be made into a film with Fox set up once again. “”We are starting to talk to Fox and talk to the C.S. Lewis estate now about the Magician’s Nephew being our next film … If we can all agree to move forward, then what we would do is find someone to write the script. So, it could still be a couple of years.“”
While the movies haven’t been as successful over time for a variety of reasons, Flaherty believes that going to The Magician’s Nephew will be the right thing to do since it’s sold the most books after The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe, largely owing to the change in order done over the years by HarperCollins as they gained both domestic and international publishing rights, and moved the sixth book to the front based off of certain conversations by Lewis over the years.
“”What’s interesting is that the ‘Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ over this period of time sold twice as many books as ‘Prince Caspian’ and it did twice as much at the box office. ‘Prince Caspian’ sold a third of the books as ‘Dawn Treader’ and did a third at the box office,” says Flaherty.
