If you’re a high-profile movie that made a lot of money for a big studio, you will most likely get a sequel if possible—that’s the operating rule of thumb in Hollywood these days. And if you’re a high-profile movie that made a lot of money for a big studio and you’re based on a beloved series of books, you’re probably getting a lot more than the sequel. That’s been the gamble with The Chronicles of Narnia series, which had its first hit in 2005 and probably will have another one this summer with Prince Caspian. The next film, Voyage of the Dawn Treader, is already in production, and most Narnia fans had assumed that the other four books in the series would see their adaptations before too long.
Well, not so fast. Prince Caspian producer Mark Johnson inadvertently confirmed a web rumor over the weekend, as reported by FirstShowing.net. Johnson said that he and his fellow producers have “no plans” for a fourth Narnia film after the third one wraps. This, of course, is what we call “hedging your bets.” With Prince Caspian so close to release, and the memory of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe’s major success in the distant past, it seems foolish for Johnson to say, “We have a guaranteed hit on our hands, and we’re going all the way through seven!”
Plus, the Narnia books don’t exactly work with continuity the way, say, Harry Potter does. Different characters show up in each one, in different parts of the world, and the only connective thread is occasional appearances by familiar characters or C.S. Lewis’ pervasive worldview. Someone who loves Edmund and Lucy and company in Wardrobe, for example, might not find anything to love in The Horse and His Boy. It’s a much riskier series to adapt than some others, and it makes sense that the producers be careful when toying with hundreds of millions of dollars of budgets.
That said, Prince Caspian looks like it will be a giant hit, and Dawn Treader leads well into at least two other books in the series, which follow the Pevensie’s initially-nasty cousin Eustace. So don’t get too upset yet that you won’t see the whole scope of Narnia on film. You’re just going to have to be really, really patient.
