Fantasy fans were dismayed last December when it was officially announced that Disney was pulling out of the Chronicles of Narnia franchise. Despite a reasonably decent intake at the box office by Prince Caspian, it was too expensive to make, and ticket sales were not reasonably covering the costs of the project. With heavy expenditures anticipated for The Voyage of the Dawn Treader because of its seafaring plot line, Disney decided it was time to cut its losses and severed its connection with Walden Media, the other studio behind the series.Now it has been announced that 20th Century Fox wants in on the action, and has agreed to help finance the next movie. The original cast will stay on, and with any luck, a film will be released in 2010. There is some worry, however, that Fox will not be up to the task and may butcher the series. As briefly mentioned in the Variety article, and expanded upon by First Showing, Fox was the studio behind the Eragon movie which came out in 2006, a disaster of a movie that hacked up the plot and failed with critics. I understand the need to shorten plots when one transfers a book to the screen. I put up with a decent amount of cutting in the Harry Potter films with reasonably little fuss. But the team behind Eragon cut out, not one, but two magical races from the storyline, and instead of a conglomerate of dwarves, elves, and humans running around, we were left with simply humans running around, a much more unappealing line up. Will similar cuts be made to Narnia? As Arya went from elf to human, will Reepicheep go from mouse to man? An extreme suggestion, but I'm worried that with Fox behind the film and with director Andrew Adamson not returning to the helm, who will keep the magical spirit alive in the franchise? Fox made a bold move in attempting to take over the franchise; let's hope we don't end up regretting the decision.
