Director Joe Johnston (Captain America: The First Avenger) has been selected to breath new life into the Narnia franchise on the next installment, Narnia: The Silver Chair. Having worked on big-budget action movies and smaller more intimate films, collaborator Mark Gordon believes that Johnston is the perfect man for the job. Variety was the first to pick up the story.
It’s been seven years since the release of last film from the Narnia franchise – the last film being The Voyage of the Damned Treader (2010). This caused many to wonder if the Pevensie siblings would ever make their return to the big screen. Hope was given to fans in 2013 when the rights were purchased by The Mark Gordon Company and The C.S. Lewis Company. However, they took their sweet time producing new material despite having announced their plans for The Silver Chair film way back then.
Flash-forward to June 2015, and David Magee (Life of Pi) restores fan’s hopes after tweeting about having completed a first draft of The Silver Chair. Though Narnia lovers later come to find that their fears have come half true. While the series is being continued, the filmmakers have no intention of following along with what the previous rights holders had created. The film will stay true to the novels, but the cast and tone will change. This might be a smart choice considering the decline of box office sales with each release.