With Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull pulling in $151 million this weekend and Iron Man continuing to do solid business beyond damn-near everyone’s expectations, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (now in its second week in theatres, no less) has still not cracked $100 million. And before anyone asks, that does include the Memorial Day numbers!

Just before the summer film-season kicked off, a number of box-office forecasters were projecting Prince Caspian to pull in anywhere between $270 - $320 million. At the rate it’s going now, it’ll be lucky to get anywhere near $200 million.

Short version: Prince Caspian is much better than the first Narnia film.

Let’s get straight to the point: If you liked the first Chronicles of Narnia movie, you’ll like this one even better. For some reason I never wrote a review of the first one, but if I had I probably would have given it about , a full point lower than Prince Caspian.

On the other hand, if you’re a big fan of the book upon which this film is based, you’re going to be torn because it deviates heavily from that story. I wouldn’t have known that myself, but my daughter re-read the book just recently and found herself pulled in two directions regarding the movie. On its own she thought it was very good, but she was perturbed over the inclusion of entire sequences that never appeared in the book while parts of the original story were completely absent from the film.

[UPDATE: Disney has notified us that they do indeed plan on bringing ALL the remaining Chronicles of Narnia movies to the big screen. According to them the source on this is completely wrong. - Vic]

We knew it was in development. But according to our buddies at Jim Hill Media, Disney and Pixar are moving forward with a film-trilogy based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars series for 2012 at the earliest… if not sooner than that.

Mark Andrews (Oscar-nominated screenwriter of Ratatouille) has already written a draft that both Disney and Pixar executives went bonkers over; crazy enough that they’re seriously wanting this to become their next big franchise instead of adapting all seven Chronicles of Narnia books(!?!)

The second Narnia installment Prince Caspian will open this coming May with the third outing, and Voyage of the Dawn Treader slated for a May 2010 release. Beyond that, there are no current plans to bring the remaining four novels to the silver screen. In fact, Dawn Treader might even be in jeopardy unless Caspian does killer box-office.

I haven’t given the Chronicles of Narnia movies much coverage, but this trailer for the second film in the series - Prince Caspian, looks pretty good.

I watched the first one with high hopes, but in the end I was left a bit disappointed by it. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, while visually very cool and despite the fact that I liked the actors, just felt kind of… empty to me. I can’t put my finger on it, but I was expecting to be moved by it in a way similar to how the Lord of the Rings trilogy affected me. It looked like that was the vibe they were going for, but in the end I thought it fell flat.

In any case, here’s the new trailer along with the poster:

Funny how both these posters came out on the same day considering the main characters are about as opposite to each other as you can get.
Click on the small image for a larger version of both the Chronicles of Narnia and Ghost Rider posters.

I’m looking forward to Chronicles of Narnia and as far as Ghost Rider goes, I always enjoy Nicholas Cage in whatever role he happens to play.

I haven’t given any coverage to The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe here at Screen Rant, and I guess it’s about time I do. The first teaser trailer is out exclusively at Moviefone and I have to say it looks extremely impressive. I think we may have the next “Lord of the Rings” with the “Chronicles” series.

It seems like it will be an amazing adventure film aimed at kids, and unless Disney signed off on something completely stupid as far as inserting “adult” humor or situations, considering the source material by C.S. Lewis this should be family friendly fare indeed.

The runaway success of fantasy-oriented movies such as the Harry Potter series and, of course, The Lord of the Rings has started a trend of sorts. Since those movies were actually quite good, there is already a very high bar to jump for anyone else who wants to jump on board the gravy train.

Anyone who wants to make a fantasy movie these days will need to be prepared to invest in a top-quality script, state-of-the-art special effects and well-known, Oscar-worthy actors and directors who can get people sitting in the theater seats.

The latest addition to the fold is the first of C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia series, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, currently in pre-production and slated for a late 2005 release. It’s always hard to believe that something you imagined so vividly in your mind can be translated accurately to the big screen, but it can be done, as Peter Jackson showed us.

My feelings on this particular movie are mixed as far as cast and crew. Of course, a movie this early into production can change cast and/or crew if somebody sneezes wrong, but so far the director is Andrew Adamson, who is best known for directing Shrek and (brace yourself) Shrek 2. The ice queen will reportedly be played by Tilda Swinton. I’m not her biggest fan, but based on what I have seen of her work, a villain role (which the ice queen most certainly is) is more appropriate for her.

So did Peter Jackson redeem at least one genre of movies? Perhaps in part he did, but I’m willing to bet that studio heads aren’t happy about this trend at all. Investing hundreds of millions of dollars into production and marketing is something that the suits have become more and more reluctant to do. All I can say is, it’s a good thing the reality movie genre has mostly crashed and burned at the box office; otherwise, we would be overrun with unscripted drama on TV and in the theaters.

Source: IMDB

Brian