Last semester I took a class
called C. S. Lewis and the Inklings, which was easily my favorite class that
semester. For the final paper, we were allowed to write on anything related to
C. S. Lewis or J. R. R. Tolkien (these were the only Inklings we studied), so I
chose to write on something I already knew a lot about: The Chronicles of Narnia film series. As
today is the 9th anniversary of when The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was first released in theatres, I’ve decided to post this paper on here. This was a very enjoyable paper to
write, and by God’s grace I ended up getting a 95% on it. I hope this answers
some questions you might have about the Narnia film series, but mostly I hope
you enjoy reading it.
Why The
Chronicles of Narnia Film Series Has Not Been Successful
(Originally
submitted April 22, 2014)
It is common practice among
film companies today to adapt well-known and beloved books into blockbuster
feature films. Because film adaptations of books come with their own built-in
fan bases, marketing becomes easier and a larger total at the box-office is
expected. This benefits not only the film producer’s wallet but also the
writer’s estate. Film adaptations of books often have the side-effect of an
increase in book-sales. This often leads to an increased interest in other
works the author has written. But this has not always been the case. C. S.
Lewis is one of the most beloved authors of the last century. His works of both
fiction and nonfiction remain bestsellers in bookstores across the world. One
of Lewis’ closest friends and fellow Inklings was J. R. R. Tolkien, who is also
just as beloved as Lewis. His works also have a large readership and a huge fan
base. Within the last fifteen years, film adaptations have been produced of
both Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, and
Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia. Since
then, a strange thing has happened: Tolkien and his works are now far more
popular than Lewis and his works. This is largely due to the fact that all
three movies in the Lord of the Rings
film series were critically acclaimed and financially successful, while the
films in The Chronicles of Narnia
film series have not been received the same praise. This leads many to wonder
why. The Chronicles of Narnia
film series has not been well received and has not gained C. S. Lewis and his
works any additional fans because the books are not well-suited for film adaptation.
I: A Hopeful Beginning – The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
(2005)
 |
| Original theatrical poster for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. |
Plans
to adapt C. S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia books to film began several years
before actual movie production started. Douglas Gresham, stepson of C. S. Lewis
and producer of the films, had been planning on adapting the books for many
years; he just had to wait for the right timing. That timing came during the
rise of popularity in other adaptations of well-known fantasy books, namely The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. However, Gresham states
that while “to some extent Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings series
and the advent of J. K. Rowling’s work did call attention to fantasy in film,… this was a market that [he] had already seen
to be existent years before” (“Behind the Wardrobe”). No film company
decided to pick up the series until they saw the potential it had. The
adaptations of Tolkien’s Lord of the
Rings were extremely well-received and made almost three billion dollars
worldwide. The Lord of the Rings: Return
of the King alone made over a billion dollars at the box-office and won all
11 Academy Awards for which it was nominated, including Best Picture (2003).
After seeing the immense success of The
Lord of the Rings film series, Disney decided to act.
Starting from 2002, Walt
Disney Pictures had associated with Walden Media to distribute and produce film
adaptations of children’s books. Their first film together, Holes, was well-received, so Disney
decided to distribute the Walden Media-made Narnia films as their way of
entering the fantasy film adaptation battle. This time of popular book-to-film
adaptations was the best opportunity for the Narnia film series to start. Until
this point, there had been no live-action theatrical film adaptation of the
Chronicles. There had only been a made-for-television animated adaptation of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and
a live-action television serial produced by the BBC that adapted the first four
of Lewis’ Chronicles (in publication order). Disney and Walden Media felt that
there was no time better time to release a film series based on C. S. Lewis’
popular Narnia books. They felt that these films had the potential to be just
as successful as The Lord of the Rings
film series. But despite Disney’s hopeful outlook on the series, Lewis might
have thought differently. While he was alive, Lewis never sold the film rights
to any of his works. In fact, he had rather a negative view on movies in
general. In his essay “On Stories,” Lewis explains that “Nothing can be more
disastrous than the view that the cinema can and should replace popular written
fiction" (“On Stories” 509). Douglas Gresham, the head of the C. S. Lewis
Company, eventually sold the film rights because he had been anticipating film
adaptations for a long while. Soon after obtaining the rights a director was
found, Andrew Adamson, and the main actors were cast. A December release date
was set; this was going to be an early Christmas present for C. S. Lewis fans
around the world.
Upon
its release on December 9, 2005, The
Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe became a huge
hit. It received generally favorable reviews and it earned almost as much money
as The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship
of the Ring when that was first released. Some critics did not like it,
pointing out blatant Christian themes and allegories, but for the most part it
was a success. This is mainly due to the fact that The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is the most popular and
well-known of the Narnia books. The book has an easy to follow storyline, which
made the adaptation process much simpler. A few minor changes were made to the
plot, but for the most part it stayed very true to the book. One change was
that rather than alluding to the final battle like in the book, it is actually
shown. This seems to be an obvious choice for a film adaptation, but Disney saw
this opportunity to have a battle just as epic as the ones in Lord of the Rings. This and other small
changes were made in order to make this film somewhat similar to previous
fantasy films that had been so successful. And because it worked so well, Disney
and Walden Media began work on adapting Prince
Caspian almost immediately after The
Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’s release. The first film of the series
had done so well that they planned on doing the exact same thing again; their
first mistake.
II: A Big Mistake – The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008)
 |
| Original theatrical poster for The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. |
After
the huge success of the first film, Disney and Walden Media raised the budget
for the second film, expecting it to be just as successful as the first one,
maybe even more so. But they didn’t take into account the text they were
adapting. C. S. Lewis’ Prince Caspian
is very different than The Lion, the
Witch and the Wardrobe. Prince
Caspian’s storyline proved much more difficult to adapt. For one, chapters
four through seven are one huge flashback told by Trumpkin the dwarf. This is
typical of Lewis, whose novel Perelandra
(the second of his Space Trilogy) is told almost entirely in the form of a
flashback. The only problem is that this does not translate well to film.
Another difficulty the novel placed is that the main characters are split up
most of the time, and don’t all meet each other until the very end. For a large
portion of the book, Lucy and Susan are with Aslan, dryads, naiads, Bacchus,
and Silenus, in some scenes that may have proved to be too “boring” for film
audiences. Since this was cut, the writers had to fill the space with
something, and there wasn’t much to draw from in the text itself. Because so
many elements of the book were hard to adapt to the screen, the filmmakers decided to
step in and make changes.
The
main change made was the ordering of events. Prince Caspian blew Susan’s horn
of his own accord and in the very beginning of the movie, rather than agreeing
with other Narnians to use it after meeting with them in the woods. Peter,
Susan, Edmund, and Lucy also meet Prince Caspian much sooner in the film than
in the book. Another significant change was the added attack on King Miraz’s
castle. This was done in another attempt to make the film just like other
successful fantasy film adaptations. Also, Reepicheep suggests this attack in
the book, so the filmmakers didn’t just make it up. Another change was the added relationship between Susan and
Caspian. This has no basis in the book and was probably added for dramatic
tension. All of these changes and additions were made to turn Prince Caspian into more of a
fantasy/action movie. Disney and Walden Media hoped that by making this movie
as epic as the first film, it would achieve the same amount of success. But
these changes had the opposite effect on the audience.
When The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
was released on May 16, 2008, its first reviews were not quite as good as the
reviews of the first film. Most agreed that the film was much darker and much
more violent than The Lion, the Witch and
the Wardrobe. Many critics agreed with Trumpkin who says in the film, “You
may find Narnia a more savage place than you remember” (The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian). The attack on Miraz’s
castle, for example, is one of the darkest moments of the film. Both this and the
final battle scene are particularly violent, making it surprising that it did
not receive a PG-13 rating. But the filmmakers were aware of the violence in
the film and “had to be mindful of the PG rating they were contractually
obligated to deliver to Disney and Walden Media” (Horn 1). The fact that this
film pushed the limits of a PG film made many moviegoers angry. It was meant to
be more intense than the first film, but this may have gone too far. There is
much more violence in the Lord of the
Rings movies, but audiences did not mind it, because they expected it. The
makers of The Lord of the Rings: The Two
Towers did not have to worry about striving for a PG rating, meaning that
in the Battle of Helm’s Deep they could have almost as much violence as they
wanted. Because audiences did not expect so much violence in a PG-rated Narnia
film, they did not like it as much.
Monetarily, the film
did not do too well either. The film was released during the summer, unlike the
first film’s December release. Summer is the biggest movie season of the year,
which is why Disney chose to release it then, but many other films thought the
same thing. The Chronicles of Narnia:
Prince Caspian had to face off against other popular and highly-anticipated
movies that summer, like Indiana Jones
and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The
Dark Knight, and Iron Man. After
hearing not-so positive reviews of Prince
Caspian, many people chose to see other summer blockbusters instead.
Another factor is that Prince Caspian
is not as well known as The Lion, the
Witch and the Wardrobe. In fact, many fans of the Chronicles list Prince Caspian as their least favorite
in the series. In the end, the film made more than its budget, but nowhere
close to the gross of the first film.
Many of the people who disliked the movie the most
were the fans of the book series and of C. S. Lewis. They were upset about some
of the major plot changes. Though these changes were made to appease a wider
audience, they had the effect of turning away even some die-hard Narnia fans.
The main complaints from fans of the books were about the re-ordering of major
plotlines, the adding of scenes, and the Caspian/Susan relationship (dubbed on
the internet as “Suspian”). The Lord of
the Rings film series by comparison are much closer to the books, which is
one reason why they were more successful than Prince Caspian. What The Lord
of the Rings movies removed from the books, they mostly added different
elements from the books. Tolkien’s Lord
of the Rings novels are much longer and more complex than Lewis’ Narnia
books, which is partly why changes to the plot and the removal of scenes and
elements from Prince Caspian are much
more noticeable than in any of the Lord
of the Rings movies. It was because of these noticeable changes that many
fans did not enjoy this film as much as the first film. And for the casual
moviegoer, the film was much too violent for its rating. Despite trying to make
the film more accessible to a wider audience, Disney and Walden Media turned
people off, dashing their hopes of making a film franchise as successful as The Lord of the Rings.
III:
An Unsuccessful Revival – The Chronicles
of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (2010)
 |
| Original theatrical poster for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. |
Because of the poor
reception to The Chronicles of Narnia:
Prince Caspian, both financially and critically, Walt Disney Pictures opted
out of distributing a third film with Walden Media. This put a major halt on
the production of a third film, though Walden Media still intended on making
another one. Eventually, the series was picked up by 20th Century
Fox and production continued. One of Walden Media’s main goals with this movie
was to return to the former glory the franchise once had with the first film.
This is evident in their marketing campaign. In the first official trailer for
the movie appears the phrase “Return to Hope, Return to Magic, Return to
Narnia” (YouTube). This phrase also
appears on various posters for the movie and on the inside packaging of the
Blu-ray release of the film. This was meant to get audiences to feel that this
Narnia film would finally be as good as the first one. This filmmakers even set
almost the exact same release date as the first film. Also, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is often
considered among Lewis fans as one of the best in the book series. Walden Media
was hopeful that for these reasons, The
Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader would return the film
series to its former glory so that more films could be made in the future. By
taking everything that was successful about the first film and trying to turn Voyage of the Dawn Treader into that,
Fox and Walden Media had high hopes.
But that was not to
be. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage
of the Dawn Treader was released on December 10, 2010, and before it had
been out a week, mixed to negative reviews were already coming. Many critics
agreed with Fox’s stance and saw it as a true revival of the series, while
others saw the film as even worse than Prince
Caspian. The main complaints people had against The Voyage of the Dawn Treader were similar to those made against Prince Caspian, except the complaint
about violence. Most did not like how once again, the plot was re-arranged.
Many also did not like the added “villain” of the film, “The Green Mist,” which
was a form of the dark island from the book. In fact, the reason the mist was
green was because the filmmakers intended to have elements from this film tie
into The Silver Chair, which features
an evil green lady and kidnapped Narnians. But despite drastic changes like
this, Douglas Gresham was surprisingly okay with it all. He explains that part
of his job as head of the C. S. Lewis Company “is to try to ensure that no
matter how much the stories are changed to fit into film format (and major
changes can be vital) the essential theme of the original book always remains
the theme of the movie” (“Behind the Wardrobe”). Gresham believed that despite
major changes to this film, audiences would still get Lewis’ message of
redemption. But even then, that did not change audiences’ opinions of the movie
in general.
Another problem this
film faced was that many elements and aspects of the book are hard to translate
to film, a similar problem from Prince
Caspian as well. One particularly memorable moment in the book is when
Eustace first realizes that he is a dragon. After spending the night on
dragon’s treasure, Eustace is transformed into a dragon, but he does not
realize it until later. After waking up in the cave, he notices that his
breathing matches some columns of smoke. “This was so alarming that he held his
breath. The two columns of smoke vanished. When he could hold his breath no
longer he let it out stealthily; instantly two jets of smoke appeared again.
But even yet he had no idea of the truth” (The
Voyage of the Dawn Treader 64). This kind of writing in the book works well
because it is a stream of consciousness from Eustace’s point-of-view, but
something like this is almost impossible to put in film. The screenwriters did
the best they could, but they still had to add and change parts of the plot so
that it might make more sense on screen.
Another element from the book that doesn’t work so
well in film is the way that the crew of the Dawn Treader goes from island to island without much linking the
islands together. In the book, they travel from place to place for the sake of
adventure, and also to find all the lost lords of Narnia, but for the film, the
writers felt the need to have some kind of danger, and have more at stake. That’s
why they added the Green Mist and the way to defeat it. The added plot of
collecting the swords of the seven lords to defeat evil in Narnia has much more
of a sense of urgency than simply looking for the lords to see what happened to
them. The order of the islands visited was also changed, but this was also to
serve the purpose of defeating the “Dark Island/Green Mist” as the last task
before the end.
Overall, most moviegoers felt that The Voyage of the Dawn Treader was an
unsuccessful attempt to revitalize the Narnia film series. It didn’t receive
many positive reviews, and it made a little less money than Prince Caspian made. It had some
redeeming qualities, but there were once again too many deviations from the
source material. Many also still had a bad taste in their mouth from Prince Caspian and did not want to go
back for seconds. This film did not succeed because changes had to be made due
to difficult-to-adapt scenes and elements. The books were not written to be
made into films. Tolkien’s Lord of the
Rings books were not written to be films either, Tolkien’s writing style
just translates better to film than Lewis’ does, making for better film
adaptations.
IV:
An Uncertain Future – The Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair (????)
 |
| Unofficial teaser image for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair. |
After
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of
the Dawn Treader failed to rekindle interest in Narnia, the film series was
once again put in jeopardy. With Fox and Walden Media unsure of what to do,
Walden’s contract with the C. S. Lewis Company eventually expired, putting a
moratorium on the series until about 2018. Douglas Gresham confirmed this,
saying “If you’re aware Walden’s contract with the [C S Lewis] Company has
expired, that’s true. And that leaves us in a situation that, for a variety of
reasons, we cannot immediately produce another Narnian Chronicle movie”
(“Interview with Douglas Gresham”). Despite their best efforts it seemed that
the Narnia film series was dead.
But
before the contract expired, Walden Media
had planned on adapting The Magician’s
Nephew as the next film in the series. Around the time it would have been
released, likely 2012, was when prequels were starting to become popular. In 2012, work began on Oz the Great
and Powerful, a prequel to The Wizard
of Oz. But more importantly, December 2012 saw the release of the first
part of a prequel to The Lord of the
Rings film series; The Hobbit: An
Unexpected Journey. The Lord of the
Rings film trilogy had performed so well that it was only a matter of time
before an adaptation of Tolkien’s The
Hobbit was made. Adapting The
Magician’s Nephew as the next film in the series might have worked well
because movie audiences were in the prequel mood. The Magician’s Nephew explains “how all the comings and goings
between our own world and the land of Narnia first began” (The Magician’s Nephew 1). It would have also explained the
lamppost, the wardrobe, and the professor, all elements from the first film,
the only successful film of the series.
Recently however, it
has been announced that the Narnia film series is not yet dead. Last October,
the C. S. Lewis Company announced that they “entered into an agreement with The
Mark Gordon Company to jointly develop and produce The Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair, the fourth book
published in C.S. Lewis’ famed fantasy series” (The C. S. Lewis Company). A
more recent announcement reveals that screenwriter David Magee (Finding Neverland and Life of Pi) has been hired to write the
script. The Silver Chair seems a good
choice as well, seeing as The Chronicles
of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader helped set it up. No distributor
has been chosen yet, nor has a release date been set. All that is known about
the future of the Chronicles of Narnia
film series at this point is that The
Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair will happen at some point.
But even if all seven
books are adapted, what then? The Narnia film series has problems that go
beyond the films; many of the problems extent straight from the sources
themselves. As previously stated, the main problems with the series have been
that they’ve tried to be what they are not and they haven’t been faithful to
the books. Fans of the books can always go back and read the books, but they
cannot expect the same experience in seeing the adaptations. Because these
books are so short, it almost forces the screenwriters to add what they can to
the story. J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle-Earth however is massive. He spent most of
his life expanding it, writing its history, and developing new stories. The
film adaptations of his works, especially of The Hobbit trilogy greatly utilize the extra writings of Tolkien.
Lewis on the other hand only ever wrote seven books in his Chronicles of Narnia, and that was all he ever intended on writing.
In a letter to a young fan, he writes “the Narnia series has come to an end,
and am sorry to tell you that you can expect no more” (Lewis 532). This brings
up one major reason why the film adaptations of Tolkien’s works have gained
Tolkien more fans when compared to the number of new fans of Lewis and his
works. Many who went to see The Lord of
the Rings film series were impressed and satisfied with seeing stories that
closely followed the books and were generally good movies. After exiting the
theatre, many of those people researched Tolkien and Middle-Earth to see what
else he had written on the subject, and were pleased to find out just how
expansive the world is. Fans of Lewis’ The
Chronicles of Narnia must be disappointed however. Lewis never expanded his
world at all, and the only other fiction he wrote wasn’t children’s fiction.
This is partly why The Chronicles of
Narnia film series has been unsuccessful. Those who saw the movies and were
interested in them, found out that there were only seven books, and were
disappointed that there wasn’t more.
In conclusion, The Chronicles of Narnia film series has
not done what most film adaptations have done. It has not gained C. S. Lewis
and his works any additional fans, but that’s not necessarily his fault. Most
of his writings, including the Narnia books, are just not filmable. Of all
Lewis’ writings, the Narnia series seems like it would be the easiest to film,
but even then there are elements that do not translate well from page to screen.
This causes screenwriters to have to stray from the original storyline and
occasionally add and delete elements and scenes. And where there are those
areas, screenwriters have to fill in the holes with what they can, because C.
S. Lewis never expanded his world beyond the seven Chronicles. It turns out the
failure of the film series is not entirely the fault of the filmmakers. The
books are just as much to blame as the movies for the unsuccessful adaptations.
The books themselves are amazing and it is truly the sign of a great author
that parts of a story only work if they are being read in a book. The
unfilmable quality of most of the Narnia books is why The Chronicles of Narnia film series has not achieved the same
amount of success as The Lord of the
Rings film series, and why it has not gained C. S. Lewis and his works any
additional fans.
Works Cited
(Yes, I know the MLA formatting isn't quite correct. I had to change it when I posted it on here because it was difficult to make it the same formatting as the Microsoft Word document)
The C. S. Lewis Company. The Fourth
Narnia Movie Will Be THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE SILVER CHAIR. The Chronicles of
Narnia by C. S. Lewis - Official Site. N.p., 1 Oct. 2013. Web.
20 Apr. 2014. <https://www.narnia.com/us/news-extras/narnia-news>.
The Chronicles of Narnia:
Prince Caspian.
Dir. Andrew Adamson. Screenplay by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely.
Perf. William Moseley, Anna Popplewell, Skandar Keynes, Georgie Henley, and Ben
Barnes. Walt Disney Pictures, 2008. DVD.
The Chronicles of Narnia:
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader Official Trailer [HD]. YouTube. OfficialNarnia, 16 June
2010. Web. 22 Apr. 2014 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrJQDPpIK6I>.
Gresham, Douglas. "Behind the Wardrobe:
An Interview Series with Douglas Gresham, Part 4 of 6: "On the Narnia Film
Project."" Interview by Jonathon Svendsen. NarniaFans.com. N.p., 3 Oct. 2007. Web. 20
Apr. 2014. <http://www.narniafans.com/archives/1237#sthash.iuKbUWx5.dpbs>.
---. "Interview with Douglas
Gresham." Interview. Middle-earth Radio. N.p., 16 Oct. 2011.
Web. 20 Apr. 2014.
<http://radio.mymiddleearth.com/>.
Horn, John. "Darkness Falls on
'Narnia'" Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 04 May 2008. Web. 22 Apr. 2014.
<http://articles.latimes.com/2008/may/04/entertainment/ca-narnia4>.
Lewis, C. S. "From Letters to Children." Ed. Lyle W. Dorsett. The
Essential C.S. Lewis. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996. 532.
Print.
---. The Magician’s Nephew. New
York: HarperTrophy, 2000. Print.
---. "On Stories." Ed. Lyle W.
Dorsett. The Essential C.S. Lewis. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996. 509. Print.
---. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. New York: HarperTrophy,
2000. Print.
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