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The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005) More at IMDb Pro »

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5 articles from 2007

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Catholic League Protests 'Golden Compass'

12 October 2007 | From Studio Briefing | See recent Studio Briefing news

Two months before the scheduled release of New Line Cinema's The Golden Compass, the Catholic League has launched an all-out assault on the fantasy film. The League, the largest Catholic lay organization in the U.S., has produced a 25-page pamphlet, titled "The Golden Compass: Unmasked," that it is selling on its website for $5.00 per copy, which damns the film as a pernicious effort to indoctrinate children into atheistic beliefs. Acknowledging that the film itself is unlikely to contain offensive material, Catholic League President Bill Donohue said in a statement, "If unsuspecting Christian parents take their children to see the movie, they may very well find it engaging and then buy Pullman's books for Christmas. That's the problem. We are fighting a deceitful stealth campaign on the part of the film's producers." Pullman has acknowledged his anti-religious stance but critics have said that his books present little that is likely to offend believers. Stephen Whitty, critic for the Newark, NJ Star Ledger wrote Thursday that he had read C.S. Lewis' Narnia books, which contain Christian imagery while attending a Catholic parochial school as a child and later read them to his Jewish children. "But that doesn't mean that any of us accepted Lewis's Northern-Irish Protestantism as our own faith. ... I know, for example, that when my children saw The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe they saw absolutely no obvious Christian imagery in it. I am sure that, when we go to see The Golden Compass, they'll see no atheistic agenda either."

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Apted To Direct Next 'Narnia' Tale

21 June 2007 | From wenn.com | See recent WENN news

Enigma filmmaker Michael Apted is taking over from Andrew Adamson to direct the third installment in The Chronicles Of Narnia series. Disney Pictures and Walden Media announced on Wednesday that Apted, 66, will direct The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader, which is scheduled for release in 2009. Adamson is currently filming Prince Caspian in New Zealand - which is set for release next year, following the success of The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe in 2005. In chronological order, The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader and Prince Caspian are the fifth and fourth books respectively in C.S. Lewis' seven book series, but filmmakers have chosen the order so the first movie's child actors can continue to play their characters before they are too old.

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Will Churchgoers Turn Out for 'Evan Almighty'?

20 June 2007 | From Studio Briefing | See recent Studio Briefing news

For the first time since Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, a distributor will be courting the church-going audience with the release of Universal's $200-million Evan Almighty -- reportedly the most costly comedy ever made -- this weekend. Today's (Wednesday) Los Angeles Times observed that in recent years, studios have avoided making films with content aimed at the faithful. (Gibson's Passion was self-financed; Disney's The Chronicles of Narnia played down the religious themes, although the studio heavily marketed the film to churchgoers.) However, the Times observed, "If Evan Almighty turns into a summer hit, as several competing studio executives predict, the movie could put Hollywood back in the business of making big-budget movies that intentionally embrace sacred subjects." According to the newspaper, Universal has partnered with Grace Hill Media, the marketing firm that several studios are using to bring the film to the attention of the country's estimated 200,000 churches. It has conservatively estimated that the movie will earn $40 million on opening weekend.

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Disney Looking Good In First Quarter, Say Analysts

8 May 2007 | From Studio Briefing | See recent Studio Briefing news

The Walt Disney Co. is expected to report first-quarter revenue of $8.1 billion, up from $8 billion for the year-ago quarter, following the close of trading today (Tuesday), a figure likely to cheer investors given the fact that its ABC television network didn't broadcast the Super Bowl this year and that it had no box-office hit on the level of last year's The Chronicles of Narnia during the quarter, the Wall Street Journal observed today. Nevertheless, it noted, investors are focusing on the current quarter when Disney releases the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie and Pixar's animated Ratatouille. The performance of the latter film may be regarded as critical, the Journal commented, since it is expected to test the wisdom of Disney's $7.4-billion purchase of the computer-animation studio.

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Hollywood Beckons Beckham

12 January 2007 | From Studio Briefing | See recent Studio Briefing news

The $250-million deal to bring David Beckham to Los Angeles as the starring player for the Los Angeles Galaxy Major League Soccer team may only represent the prelude to a more intimate business relationship between him and Anschutz Entertainment Group, owner of the team, and billionaire Phil Anschutz in particular, analysts observed Thursday. Following the success of his The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which was distributed by Disney, Anschutz has reportedly been planning a wider expansion of his film output, and the glamorous Beckham could provide him with significant international star appeal. Today's (Friday) Los Angeles Times reported that within hours after the announcement that Beckham was coming to Los Angeles, Brandy Navarre, co-owner of the X17 photo agency had assigned five photographers to cover Beckham and his wife Victoria, the former "Posh Spice." But Harvey Levin, who runs the celebrity website TMZ.com, expressed skepticism that the Beckhams will attract the kind of attention in the U.S. that they have overseas. Noting that he's still relatively unknown in the U.S., Levin remarked, "He can't just come in here and expect that he's going to be the same huge celebrity he was in England."

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2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003

5 articles from 2007

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