Screen Rant » chronicles of narnia

Howard Berger Talks ‘Predators’

Anthony Ocasio — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 02:41:35 +0000

Clint Morris over at Moviehole had a chance to visit the set of The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader and while perusing the Australian country-side, sat down with effects guru, Howard Berger, to talk with him about one of his upcoming projects, the Robert Rodriquez-produced Predators.

Morris, who got started in effects working with Stan Winston on the original Predator and Aliens movies, just received photos of the finished Predator(s) from his team in Los Angeles and says that they look “fantastic” and that the fans will be happy with the look of the Predator(s).

After Aliens vs. Predator and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem were released, fans weren’t all too happy with what was done to the look of their beloved, iconic Predator. What’s Morris’ angle that has him so confident?

”We wanted to have the Predator look as it did in the original film. We went back and looked at the original.”

Sure, it sounds so simple now, but two films completely ignored that philosophy and because of that thinking we received this monstrosity below:

This interview with Morris really made me feel confident in this project. Sure, Robert Rodriguez is involved, but I’ve come to put less significance in the whole “produced by” moniker than by the people actually, physically involved (Kevin Smith was a “producer” on Good Will Hunting). I’m glad to know that the person behind the decisions regarding the character design wants simply, as he says, “…to make sure we built them as Stan Winston did.”

Does this raise your hopes for the next Predator movie?

Predators will start filming soon with release in 2010.

Source: Moviehole [via: Comingsoon]

You Might Also Be Interested In:

First Glimpse of Chronicles of Narnia’s ‘Dawn Treader’ [Updated]

Kofi Outlaw — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:24:40 +0000

[UPDATE: Bottom of the post for a look at the completed Dawn Treader!]

The guys over at Cine Fools managed to snag some exclusive shots of the new Dawn Treader ship which will be the focal point in the next installment of The Chronicles of Narnia.

The photos were taken by the father of one of the bloggers at the Cleveland Point, Queensland, Australia site where the Dawn Treader is being constructed. The ship is still in its early phases, but we thought you Narnia fans would like to have a looksee anyway.

Check it out:

[UPDATE: Thanks to Coming Soon We now have finished pics of the Dawn Treader]

You can head on over to Cine Fools for more shots of the Dawn Treader, including the “dragon’s head” masthead and the “dragon’s wing” flaps which will eventually be attached. For a gallery of the finished ship, head on over to Coming Soon. It’s looking Pretty cool.

For those who don’t know: Voyage of the Dawn Treader is the fifth book (chronologically speaking) in C.S. Lewis’ Narnia series. It takes place about three years after the events of Prince Caspian (the fourth book) when Edmund, Lucy and their cousin, Eustace, are once again pulled into Narnia, this time landing aboard Caspian’s sea vessel, the titular Dawn Treader. Caspian, now king of Narnia, is honoring his oath to find the seven lost lords of Narnia at the edge of the world, so Edmund, Lucy and Eustace tag along for the voyage.

As far as the Narnia books go, Dawn Treader is by no means the most popular – but the plot does leave plenty of room for an entertaining adventure fantasy. That is, if 20th Century Fox can do the movie proper, now that the studio has taken over the Narnia series from Disney. We’ll see.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader is due in theaters on December 10, 2010.

Source: Cine Fools via JoBlo

Update Source: Coming Soon

You Might Also Be Interested In:

Wolverine Shreds Box Office: $87 Million Opening Weekend

Heath McKnight — Mon, 04 May 2009 16:35:26 +0000

They call him Wolverine, and he’s the best at what he does, and what he does is shred the box office with berserker rage! Okay, enough of the Wolverine analogies, but you can’t help but be impressed with the $87 million haul of X-Men Origins: Wolverine!

What a way to start off the summer–with the 2009 box office up over last year, people are still hungry for movies, even in this economy. Fox need not fret any more about the pirated version that leaked out, hurting the box office, because the Hugh Jackman-starrer proved that people love to see movies in the theaters.

But the one thing Wolverine’s healing factor and near-indestructible adamantium-laced skeleton can’t stop, and that’s the critical drubbing it’s receiving. It stands at an awful 37% rating over at RottenTomatoes.com, though Screen Rant’s owner and Editor-in-Chief Vic Holtreman gave it 3 out of 5 stars. I’ve been reading online that it’s also getting fair-to-poor word-of-mouth ratings from viewers, and that has the potential to hurt the film in the coming weeks.

I’d say a Wolverine 2 is now extremely likely to get green lit (how about Bryan Singer directing?!), and other X-Men movies could see the green light, too, like X-men: First Class and X-Men Origins: Magneto and spinoffs for Deadpool and Gambit.

Add to that another May that’s over-stocked with movies, so something’s going to give and a movie will crash and burn. Iron Man, which opened the same weekend last year, was able to stay invincible because it was a well-received film by fans and critics, while Speed Racer and The Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian were both weak films that crashed and burned.

With Star Trek, Angels and Demons, Terminator Salvation, and Disney/Pixar’s Up all coming out in the coming weeks, can Wolverine stay the positive box office course? We’ll have to keep our eyes on it. For now, X-Men Origins: Wolverine has started the summer off with a rip-roaring howl!

You Might Also Be Interested In:

Third Narnia Film Gets A Release Date

Ross Miller — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 19:15:37 +0000

Just over a month after the news that Fox had saved the Narnia franchise by coming on-board to co-finance it, we get the release date for the third film:

December 10th, 2010

This will see the franchise return to its original winter release date: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe was released on December 9th, 2005 but for some reason they decided to change that up for the second film, which came out on May 16th 2008 – and made only $141 million (which was only about half what the first one made).

Is that a sign that established franchises are better released where there is no other competition? After all the same thing happened with the Harry Potter franchise – they normally were released in November each year and when they tried to change that and release a couple in the summer at least one of them didn’t make as much money (the fifth flick Order of the Phoenix made the most of any of the sequels worldwide even being released in July, but that was due to the book rather than the release date).

I’ll bet you Walden Media were thanking their lucky stars Fox stepped in after Walt Disney pulled out – I’m sure with the back to winter release date they have plus that date being free of competition (for the time being anyway – although I’m pretty sure not many others would want to go head to head with a Narnia film) will go some way to getting the franchise back on some sort of track.

However only time will tell if Voyage of the Dawn Treader will do better than the last film – do you think it will?

Source: WeAreMovieGeeks

You Might Also Be Interested In:

‘Narnia’ Franchise Saved By Fox

Ross Miller — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 19:18:38 +0000

A month after it was revealed that Walt Disney had pulled out of financing the next Narnia film we have news that 20th Century Fox has swooped in and taken hold of (part of) the financial reigns. Budget and script issues are still being worked out between Walden and Fox but they hope for an end of summer start date for shooting and are aiming for a summer 2010 release.

This is a kind of stroke of ironic luck on Fox’s part as head of Fox 2000 (the part of Fox that will be spearheading production and development matters) had been pursuing the Narnia franchise but was beaten to it by Walden. Over the past few years they have been looking for “a family-friendly, lit-based franchise for years,” with Eragon being a disappointing financial flop for them.

The sequel, subtitled Voyage of the Dawn Treader, is reported to have a $141 million budget, which is certainly a lot less than the $215 million that Prince Caspian had. Maybe they’re playing it as safe as they can budget-wise (although no one’s saying $141 million is in any way a small amount of money) as the high budget of the last one was the reason it was such a financial disappointment.

What may have contributed also to the box-office disappointment of Caspian was that it’s considered to be the least commercially appealing of any of the original books and I’m sure the more family-friendly style of Dawn Treader will contribute to it doing better this time around.

The not too distant summer start date for shooting depends on the writer. The most recent draft that both Walden and Fox approved was written by Richard LaGravanese (The Fisher King, P.S. I Love You) but his availability is in question as he’s currently adapting the book Water for Elephants for none other than Fox 2000.

I’m pretty sure Narnia is a bigger priority for the company, however…

After the wheels are in motion the film will likely be shot in Australia, moving away from the originally intended location of Mexico in the Fox owned facility Rosarito where such films as Titanic and Master and Commander were shot.

Okay, okay, I’ll go ahead and say it – Fox probably has (or will have) enough money lying around after the WB/Watchmen settlement is done with and probably saw dollar signs when Walt Disney pulled out of producing this series. Although it’s certainly a risk on Fox’s part because of the financial failure of the last film they probably think the payoff if it does make as much money as they’re hoping, is worth the risk.

So are you glad that the Narnia franchise has been saved and will continue on? And are you glad that Fox was the one to save it?

Source: IESB

You Might Also Be Interested In:

Disney NOT Producing Third Narnia Film

Ross Miller — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 15:53:40 +0000

It’s been revealed that Walt Disney has pulled out of co-producing and co-financing the third film in The Chronicles of Narnia franchise, subtitled The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. The reasons are unclear but were described as “budgetary and logistical.”

With the under-performance of the last film, Prince Caspian, I’m not surprised that Disney has decided to pull out. If you’re a regular Screen Rant reader this news won’t be a complete surprise. Fellow writer Jamie Williams predicted back in May that Dawn Treader was probably not going to be made.

The further they delve into these stories the more expensive they are going to be to make, and with a diminishing return this may be a good call.

People headed out in droves to see the first film The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe – which made $292 million domestically and another $453 million internationally back in in 2005, but the Prince Caspian sequel, although still making a profit made far less than was hoped for, taking in a disappointing $141 million domestically and another $278 million internationally (so the first film made more money just internationally than the second one made altogether).

I think Disney has seen the warning signs along the road and decided to take the first turn off it before it reaches what looks like a financially messy situation. If they made a third film, I wouldn’t be surprised if it actually lost money.

The film is currently set for a May 2010 release but with Disney now not on-board it doesn’t look great for Walden Media and this third film in general. Walden is currently snooping around for another company to help finance/distribute and reports suggest it will most likely end up being Fox as they already market and distribute Walden fare under the Fox Walden banner.

But this means that the involvement of certain people with the project, such as the director Michael Apted (The World Is Not Enough) and writer Steven Knight (Eastern Promises) might be in jeopardy. I don’t think it’s in doubt that the key actors from the previous installments will be back to serve continuity but you just never know; the movie business is an unpredictable thing.

What do you make of this news? Are you fan of the Narnia series so far and upset that things aren’t going smoothly for the third installment?

Sources: ComingSoon.net and The Hollywood Reporter

You Might Also Be Interested In:

Is Narnia Done?

Jamie Williams — Tue, 27 May 2008 01:14:58 +0000

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.

You can color me suprised… to a point. Although I never saw it breaking $300 million, I expected the second Narnia outting to haul around $250 million.

But Disney’s decision to place it during summer (as opposed to the safer Christmas territory) always struck me as a stupid move that could possibly bite them in the butt.

Maybe the Mouse was arrogant enough to think the same massive number of church-attending movie-goers (who went to see The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe in droves during Christmas 2005) would flock to see any Narnia film at any time of the year. Well… they didn’t.

If you’ll remember, we reported a few months ago about rumblings that Disney was pulling the plug on Narnia altogether following the forthcoming third installment The Voyage of the Dawn Treader – currently scheduled for May 7, 2010 release. We were reassured that the rumors were false, and ran a retraction on said article.

However only weeks later, word from the New York Comic-Con leaked that things were looking grim for Narnia after all with the earlier rumors reiterated (i.e. no more Narnia after Dawn Treader!)

Of course, the way things are looking, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader might be in trouble. Although it’s currently in pre-production with filming expected to commence later this summer, there is a potential Screen Actors Guild strike making matters worse. However if it comes to that, this could end up being a blessing in disguise for Disney.

The further they get into adapting the C.S. Lewis novels, the more expensive these productions will be. And if the Narnia films continue to under-perform (like Prince Caspian currently is), there will simply be no real profit in it for Disney.

Further more, if they even make Dawn Treader at this point (which is still up in the air), it will no doubt be moved from its current May 2010 release to Christmas of that year, where it will face competition from Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows – Part I.

All in all, it’s just not a good time to be a Narnia fan.

You Might Also Be Interested In:

Review: The Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian

Vic Holtreman — Sun, 18 May 2008 16:58:08 +0000

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.

Prince Caspian starts right off with a much darker feel than the last film, actually reminding me of a Harry Potter film with the dark castle environment. We witness (in PG fashion) the birth of a child and the announcement to the father (who appears to be in a king, but isn’t quite) that he has a son.

The nature of this lord (not a king) becomes immediately apparent when he orders the execution of prince Caspian, who is only saved with the help of his long time professor. Caspian is sent into the woods which legend (and superstition) says is populated by all kinds of scary creatures. Eventually Caspian runs into some denizens of Nania, long thought extinct and calls upon “the kings of old” for help.

Of course the kings of old turn out not to be very old at all but are out intrepid young ‘uns from the first film. Peter, the oldest is not happy that they’ve been away from Narnia for a year and has not adjusted well to life here in the real world. If you recall they lived an entire lifetime in Narnia during the first film and returned at their original ages. Meanwhile Susan, next oldest, is just trying to come to terms with the fact that they’ll never return to Narnia and get on with her life.

Once they return they slowly discover that over 1,000 years have passed since they left and things have (obviously) changed dramatically. Unknown to them it will be their task to bring Narnia out of hiding and back to a flourishing civilization.

I thought that Ben Barnes as Prince Caspian did an OK job in the role… adequate, but nothing to write home about. I think the star of the group of four heroes is 12 year old (but much younger looking) Georgie Henley as Lucy. For me the weak point is the most important character, Peter. I feel like there’s just something a bit to “vanilla” about William Moseley’s performance which takes away from the film. I will say I thought he was more believable and engaging than he was in the last movie, however.

There’s a great cast of supporting characters, topped by Peter Dinklage as the diminutive Trumpkin. He’s a little guy with a very commanding presence and that’s tough to pull off. I also thought Predrag Bjelac played a great villian as Lord Donnon.

For some folks the film may move a bit slow at times, but I thought it was fine – really a lot of character development/growth in this one, and the final battle sequence is really damned cool. On a side note, as I’ve seen expressed on other sites I was surprised that this received a PG rating. I think it pushed it pretty hard for PG, but despite all the sword fights and battles not a drop of blood (OK, maybe a small cut here and there) was to be seen.

All in all I thought it was quite good, but not stellar. A big improvement over the first and well worth checking out if you’re a fan of the first one and/or a parent looking for a grand adventure film you can bring the kids to.

We’ll have to see if it does well enough to guarantee another film based on the book series by C.S. Lewis.

You Might Also Be Interested In:

Chronicles Of Narnia Out, John Carter In?

Jamie Williams — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 00:00:36 +0000

[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.~~

Now I can’t comment on the John Carter of Mars novels since I’ve never read them (although I’ve only heard great things). But I do think placing Narnia in the summer instead of the more-reliable Christmas release is questionable… at best.

I don’t doubt there is some truth to this. The further they go along with the Narnia films; they’ll get more-and-more expensive. But as long as they make solid box-office numbers, Disney will continue to churn them out. This is the Mouse we’re talking about here, folks!

Source: Jim Hill Media

You Might Also Be Interested In:

Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian Trailer & Poster

Vic Holtreman — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 15:45:42 +0000

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:

And since this page probably isn’t taking long enough to load already, here’s the poster for The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian:

The first Narnia movie did extremely well, earning almost $300 million in the U.S. and over $740 million overall. Are you looking forward to this one?

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian opens on May 16, 2008.

You Might Also Be Interested In:

Diametrically Opposed Posters: Narnia & Ghost Rider

Vic Holtreman — Thu, 23 Jun 2005 04:27:46 +0000

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.

You Might Also Be Interested In:

Chronicles of Narnia Trailer

Vic Holtreman — Mon, 09 May 2005 01:23:23 +0000

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.

You Might Also Be Interested In:

Fantasy Movies: A good trend for a change

Brian Rentschler — Mon, 10 May 2004 13:03:17 +0000

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

You Might Also Be Interested In: