Narnia Developments

As some of you may have heard, Disney has walked away from the Chronicles of Narnia franchise, leaving Walden Media looking for new partners. This piece from the L.A. Times has some insight into what happened between the studios. Here is an excerpt:

So why would Disney walk away from such a valuable property? The back story is complicated, to say the least. The obvious reason was that compared to the astounding success of the first film, 2005's "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," which amassed nearly $750 million in global business, the second film in the series, 2008's "Prince Caspian," was a big disappointment, grossing roughly $420 million. Still, $420 million is nothing to sneeze at, being way more money than any Disney film, except for "Wall-E," made all year.

But it turns out that "Prince Caspian" didn't just bring in less money, but it cost more to make and market--a lot more. Disney acknowledges that the film cost roughly $225 million, with nearly $100 million of that going for the film's elaborate special effects. Even worse, because the studio was trying to expand the series' audience by going after teen moviegoers as well as families, Disney overspent on marketing, with some insiders estimating that the studio spent as much as $175 million on worldwide marketing for the film.

But what really derailed Disney's involvement with "Narnia" was a nasty feud between the studio and Phil Anschutz, the real estate baron and supporter of Christian conservative causes who seems to own half of America. Anschutz has a stake in or outright ownership of Regal Entertainment Group (the nation's biggest movie theater chain), Staples Center, the Kodak Theatre, the Los Angeles Galaxy, the L.A. Kings, London's Millennium Dome, a string of U.S. newspapers (including the San Francisco Examiner) and Walden Media, which has produced such films as "Journey to the Center of the Earth," "Nim's Island" and "Because of Winn-Dixie." So when Anschutz gets into an ugly dispute with Disney, we're talking about a true battle of the titans.

What happened? Keep reading:

According to multiple sources, the once-close relationship between Disney and Walden began to unravel when, after the first "Narnia" film cleaned up at the box office, Anschutz essentially put a gun to Disney's head and demanded that the studio renegotiate its deal with Walden. Anschutz insisted that Disney either gave back a sizable chunk of the studio's lucrative distribution fee or Anschutz would distribute the "Narnia" series on his own. Believing the franchise was too good to give up, Disney reluctantly changed the terms of its Walden deal, but the renegotiation poisoned relations between the two behemoths. When the second film faltered, there was so little good will left over that Disney had far less qualms abou t cutting its ties with the franchise.

20th Century Fox has since walked in to fill the void left by Disney. What exactly that means is hard to say. With Fox involved that could mean more corporate meddling with the creative process, which rarely leads to good things. On the other hand, films of this scale cost a lot of money and without another major player involved it is inconceivable that the film could get made.