Last month here we heard that Chronicles of Narnia director Andrew Adamson was planning to duck out of the franchise after filming the second movie. He’ll still be involved as a producer for the third movie, Voyage of the Dawn Treader, but he won’t be behind the camera.
Today AICN has come up with the scoop on who will replace him. They say it’s Gorillas in the Mist director Michael Apted. The reason I’m using an eighteen year-old movie to introduce him is that he hasn’t done anything significant since. Oh, he’s been working. One or two of you might have heard of the movie Enigma, maybe you remember Nell, or perhaps you caught the JLO ass-kicker Enough, but that’s as close to relevant as the guy gets. A couple of movies which no one saw or worse, really even cared about.
His most recent film, Amazing Grace, was out earlier this year and got some nice reviews but again, no one seems to care enough to go out of their way to see it. Those few good reviews weren’t enough to generate much of a buzz. I’m not saying Apted isn’t a good director, in fact he’s a great director, it’s just been a ridiculously long time since anyone has noticed him.
Apted has never tackled an epic like this, he’s never even sniffed a movie like this. There’s nothing in his body of work that would make you think he’d even be interested a Narnia movie, let alone be good shooting one. It’s kind of a shock that he’d be anywhere near the top of Disney’s list of potential Adamson replacements for one of their biggest money makers.
