Comments on: Disney Blames Prince Caspian Release Date For Bad Box Office; Concludes 2 + 2 = 5

By: Bekah

Bekah — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 16:19:59 +0000

ts very simple, really, why PC did poorly at the box office compared to the first Narnia movie Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.

All of the loyal narnia fans, called by Andrew “fanatics” were extremely disappointed with the film. We “fanatics” either watched it only once (got very upset, and did NOT spend hundreds of dollars to take all our friends&family to see it as we did for LWW.) or we boycotted it entirely after seeing some clips and hearing the plot from our friends.

They mangled Peter. They mangled Susan. They mangled Caspian. They mangled the Telmarines. And they mangled Aslan. For starters…if they wanted action…there was the whole Miraz-usurping-the-throne deal when Caspian was a small child. There was also the mysterious reason for why Susan is losing her faith throughout the book. There is Peter’s character, which exemplifies sanctification and faith, especially when he fights the duel. It would NOT have made a poor movie. There was ALOT there.

But Adamson scrapped all those themes for a teeny-bopper action flick. Whoever wrote the script had no idea what true faith was. Romance was portrayed as a temporary/irresponsible/hormonal thing (no sense of restraint, self-control, or faithfulness). And of course, Hollywood can’t stand a real male hero leader, so Peter had to be mangled into “just one of us”. Well, it didn’t do as well as LWW, which actually stayed true to the themes of the book.

Because there really was so much depth/meaning/symbolism/inner struggle going on in the book. But the scriptwriters were blockheads.

By: Peter Sciretta

Peter Sciretta — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 02:05:12 +0000

Jaime: by your assessment, anything that makes money must not be a disappointment. Wait, weren’t the star wars prequels some of the highest grossing films of all time? The later Harry Potter films took on a darker tone and didn’t scare away the family audiences. The reason being: people liked the series.They liked the last film and wanted to see the next one and the next one after that.

By: Jamie

Jamie — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 01:40:52 +0000

As to how the first film “disappointed audiences” yet resulted in tractor trailers loaded with cash for Disney and Walden… well, let’s just say I can’t follow your logic there.

Prince Caspian performed poorly because it’s dark tone drove away family audiences.

By: big daddy

big daddy — Fri, 30 May 2008 18:43:28 +0000

@ terrance

instead of making strange and retarded comments, stick to watching your wierd porn.

By: terrance

terrance — Fri, 30 May 2008 18:23:46 +0000

I’m Sorry but any movie called ” Narnia ” is just bad. It is too close to a porn title

The movies lack any emotional attatchment and thats why they suck

stick to reading the book

By: Chimaera

Chimaera — Fri, 30 May 2008 04:52:57 +0000

Silly Disney of course you predicted wrong. Your math skills mislead you because obviously 2+2= 22! and when you correct that you realize you actually did a lot better than you thought :) No, that’s not right either…

I think a Christmas release would have been the more ideal situation but I think that for all the people who really wanted to see it, it didn’t really make a difference.

By: user

user — Thu, 29 May 2008 22:55:42 +0000

water horse LOL

By: Scott

Scott — Thu, 29 May 2008 22:36:11 +0000

Dead on. The trailers were unappealing and the first entry wasn’t great. Narnia One was a throwaway knock-off. I didn’t read the book!

Talking about Prince Caspian, Disney had something. The movie’s long ,but its a major improvement in three categories, story, cinematography and editing!!!
Prince Caspian became its own film and its in the spirit of some great fantasy-adventure flicks.

Disney should’ve waited till the 2008 holiday season. They’ll get the bigger bucks in multiple DVD and BluRay releases later.

By: big daddy

big daddy — Thu, 29 May 2008 22:31:03 +0000

that last bit was funny.. peter, you smart ass.

I rather liked the first one, so i was looking forward to this, but i havent found a babysitter so i could go see it.. i guess i better have more kids so they can look after each other.

By: Captain Awesome

Captain Awesome — Thu, 29 May 2008 22:06:28 +0000

Fucking GTAIV. You’re a beast!

By: ElHombre

ElHombre — Thu, 29 May 2008 21:21:17 +0000

Dresden, C.S. Lewis liberally borrowed a lot of Christian imagery for the ‘Narnia’ books. Tolkien adapted a lot of various European mythology for LOTR, although it was far less heavy-handed. Churches heavily pushed for parents to bring their kids to see Narnia for that reason. I never liked the series. Any sword-and-scorcery setting which features Santa Claus as a character needs to be ignored.

By: Dresden

Dresden — Thu, 29 May 2008 21:00:24 +0000

What is this Christian stuff you speak of? I saw both movies, and didn’t really get that vibe. I’ve heard it mentioned before, and well, either I missed something, or… I missed something. I just saw a bunch of kids and minotaurs and dwarves and centaurs beating the crap out of each other.

By: Bob

Bob — Thu, 29 May 2008 20:31:54 +0000

excuses excuses. disney should just admit that it was a bust and change the voyage of the dawn treador’s release date to the holiday season of 2010. i would have said to release it in winter 2009 but they will probably blame james cameron’s avatar.

By: Kestrel

Kestrel — Thu, 29 May 2008 20:11:39 +0000

They should wake up and change it to the Christmas release date. . . just like Lord of the Rings and the early Harry Potter movies. It’s more of a magical time, perfect for Fantasy. Early Summer is for movies like Iron Man, The Mummy, Spiderman, etc.

By: TDAGARIM

TDAGARIM — Thu, 29 May 2008 19:41:30 +0000

I think it’s a valid reason. No one was expecting Iron Man to do so well so they probably felt it was a safe date. Plus Iron Man, though PG-13, was also very appealing to kids so that took away from Caspian’s audience. I think the movie was a big step up from the first and should do pretty well on DVD.

By: A. J.

A. J. — Thu, 29 May 2008 19:35:50 +0000

My wife is a fan of the books so we took the family to see
this. I can’t say I was all too excited in the idea especially
with Iron Man playing next door, I kept thinking that maybe
I could sneak out before it started and perhaps she wouldn’t notice. Although we watched the first one at home and I
liked it, I could care less to see this because the trailers
didn’t make it a must see movie. After seeing Prince
Caspian I can seriously say I liked the movie and would
gladly see another sequel….at home on DVD.

By: sari

sari — Thu, 29 May 2008 19:32:32 +0000

When I saw Narnia 2 all I could think about was how it was weird because it had kids going to war with adults (and it wasn’t Harry Potter or LOTR magic war…it was more realistic war). They were stabbing people and everything shoot.

By: Jim

Jim — Thu, 29 May 2008 19:31:50 +0000

I actually had the same thought about the release date being the problem with the movie. People like their thinly veiled jebus movies around the holidays.

That and they didn’t rally the base, like they did for the first one.

They would have done better to claim that it was being suppressed by the evil liberals for being pro-Christian values.

Christians being attacked by non-believers is what gets asses in seats. Disney should have remembered that.