. So it was announced last week, The Chronicles of
Narnia may be back on film! Isn’t that great? According to his twitter,
David Magee the screenwriter of Finding Neverland and Life of Pi
has completed a screenplay of The Silver Chair, the fourth published
(but sixth chronological) instalment in C.S. Lewis’ series. Which is great! But
as to the previous Narnia film franchise, it’s been six years since Voyage
of the Dawn Treader disappointed at the box office enough to kill the series.
This new film is then going to be a reboot, relaunching Narnia as a film
series. And I have to ask the question, why?
The last two Narnia films did not do well at the box
office so the demand for this is a little in question. But then again, The
Chronicles of Narnia are a rich series of books with lots of good material.
Having read all the books as a kid I’d love to see them adapted. As would many.
But of course this is very much the Spider-Man situation, in that it’s a
reboot less than a decade after the last film. And unlike Spider-Man
where any stories can be done (remember that, new Spider-Man movie!),
this is a series of books that has an already laid out story. And one with
returning characters and a chronology, so the order in which you make the films
is very important.
And that accounts for the problem of where they’re
starting. The Silver Chair is the sixth Narnia book. Out of seven. If a
studio wanted to make this film as a one-off that’d be fine, but it sounds like
their gambling on a series. But where’s the logic in starting a series at the
second from last instalment. It’d be like auctioning Harry Potter and the
Half-Blood Prince as the first Harry Potter movie. I understand why
they want to reboot. Even if they wanted to continue from where they left on,
there’s one returning character from a previous Narnia story: Eustace Scrubb.
And while Will Poulter knocked it out of the park and was one of the best
things of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader for me, he’s much too old now
to reprise his role. And he’s appearing in movies like The Revenant so
things are going great for him! In doing The Silver Chair, they’ll have
to cast the character with an actor who will somehow be younger when they get
to Voyage again. And starting in the middle of the story would be very
confusing for movie-going audiences.
If you’re going to reboot Narnia you have to start
from a more introductory vantage point. The Lion, the Witch, and the
Wardrobe was the first written and is by far the best known of the series.
You can start there, but we did just see that story in 2005. If you want to
play it safe and make a standalone movie, there’s also The Horse and his Boy
which is pretty much the Narnia series’ equivalent of an anthology film. But
even though the characters and story are new without much if any effect on the
other novels, it doesn’t set up the context of the world and is set entirely
therein. The best option would be to start the series on a Narnia book that
both introduces the world but can also stand on its own in case it fails to
increase interest in a series. The Magician’s Nephew is the perfect way
to go. Not only is it the first chronologically in the series but shows the
creation of Narnia (yeah this series has a lot of Biblical allegories), while
at the same time being an independent story. Very little of what takes place
feeds into the other stories apart from giving a bit of context to a few
aspects of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. And also The
Magician’s Nephew is just a great fantasy book. Though I prefer Voyage
and yes, The Silver Chair, The Magician’s Nephew has a tone and
sense of imagination that sets it apart. There are environments we don’t get in
the other Narnia series while still having the right sense of corniness. It’s
the perfect place to reboot the Narnia series, offering a new adventure with
new characters and setting up the world adequately while not being dependant on
follow-up films.
And if you don’t think The Magician’s Nephew will
work, don’t even try. At least not on a big budget live-action film. Hell this
may be a series that would work better in animation. Like Harry Potter
I’d be very curious to see The Chronicles of Narnia done by Studio
Ghibli or some anime studio. But trying to restart a franchise right in the
middle isn’t a good idea. Especially when it’s of a series that hasn’t been all
that financially successful in over a decade. I’d love to see more Narnia
films; the imagination, stories, and characters are rich enough that I’d love
to see them on the big screen! But The Silver Chair as much I like it,
is not the place to start a rebooted series and probably isn’t going to work
out if attempted.
Let’s try again in a decade and I’ll be first in line
for The Magician’s Nephew.
Comments
Post a Comment