Following the news that Disney canceled its plans to continue co-financing the Chronicles of Narnia film series with Walden Media, Variety is reporting that Walden has found a new partner. 20th Century Fox, which had already stepped back from the deal for the first two movies, has now commited to continuing the project. Budget and script issues are still being negotiated between Walden and Fox, but, according to Variety, they hope to shoot the film later this year for release in late 2010 under the Fox Walden label.
The third film in the series, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, is assumed to have a $140 million budget, which only two-thirds of what Prince Caspian cost. The real question, of course, is what caused the precipitous drop in income from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe ($745 million worldwide box office take) to Prince Caspian ($149 million). Disney head Roger Iger had some suggestions (see this article). But Variety notes that Prince Caspian is “considered the least commercially appealing of the seven C.S. Lewis Narnia novels,” yet it still ranked tenth in global box office performance last year. Dawn Treader is “considered to be a more family film-friendly book, and the goal is to get back to the magical aspects present in the first Narnia pic but mostly absent from Prince Caspian.”
The Variety article talks about more things yet to be decided (writer, budget, cast, and more).