One thing I've noticed about most epic sci-fi/fantasy stories is that they're essentially about war, albeit disguised and softened with weird monsters, robots and other creatures with funny names. There's usually a bad guy (with a really sinister sounding name) who wants to take over the world or something similar, and a reluctant hero -- plucked from his comfortable, yet mundane home -- who has to stop him. The trick is to make it all fun. Because let's face it, we humans love war. If we didn't there wouldn't be so many movies and books about war, as well as -- you know -- real wars. (More specifically, I think, we love watching them, rather than fighting in them.) The Lord of the Rings trilogy worked so well because Peter Jackson projected his own twisted glee into every frame; he loved making those movies and it showed. The characters felt an anxious anticipation toward the battle, like a buildup, and the battles themselves were explosive releases. The new film The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, the second in an unfortunately ongoing series, treats war as if it were already played out, rather than happening before our eyes. It's a dead dog dull bore of a movie, but that won't stop it from making a fortune. (See also Jette's review.)

Even with The Golden Compass sort of flaming out last fall, kids' fantasy continues to be a hot commodity. Witness the treatment that Brian Selznick's highly acclaimed illustrated novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret is currently receiving. The adaptation is being ushered into production by GK Films, whose last project was The Departed. They've recruited in-demand screenwriter John Logan (Gladiator, The Aviator, Sweeney Todd) to write the screenplay. And the film will be directed by Chris Wedge (Ice Age, Robots), trying to make an Andrew Adamson-like break into live-action having mastered CGI animation. The plan is to start filming this fall, presumably with an eye toward getting the movie out by Christmas of next year.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret isn't just any old children's book. Its author says that it's "not exactly a novel, and it's not quite a picture book, and it's not really a graphic novel, or a flip book, or a movie, but a combination of all these things." The New York Times called it "a silent film on paper." It's about an orphaned boy working as a clock cleaner in a Paris train station who gets embroiled in a mystery involving another of the train station's denizens. Sounds like fun, and also like an opportunity to make something generic out of something unique. Ah, but that's unfairly pessimistic (even if Robots was awful) -- I'm actually a sucker for this tyke-fantasy stuff. Another one for the ole' reading list...

After toiling for years in the studio system as a digital design associate (Batman & Robin), visual effects art director (Practical Magic), assistant art director (The Man Who Wasn't There) and, probably, a host of other jobs not yet recorded at IMDb, Lance Hammer completed his first feature film. Ballast will have its World Premiere at Sundance as part of the Dramatic Competition; its first screening is Saturday morning.

Hammer enlisted the assistance of Hollywood veterans like Andrew Adamson and Mark Johnson, who both serve as executive producers, and William Morris Independent is representing the film for US rights. Now indieWIRE reports that Celluloid Dreams has grabbed all international rights outside the US. The Paris-based sales outfit, which advertises itself as "The Directors' Label," has several other titles at Sundance, including the high-profile remake Funny Games, from Michael Haneke, and Alan Ball's Towelhead, as well as Dennis Gansel's The Wave, also screening in the Dramatic Competition.

Ballast is set in a Mississippi Delta township, where a man's suicide "radically transforms" three people and their respective relationships: a single mother (Tarra Riggs), her 12-year-old son (JimMyron Ross), and a man (Michael J. Smith, Sr.) on whose property they seek "safe harbor." The mother and the man have been feuding for a dozen years so, I imagine, sparks will fly.

One more piece of good news for the fledging feature director: Ballast has been selected for the competition at the Berlin festival next month. I'm sure we'll hear more about the film this weekend, after it starts screening at Sundance.

Its still Saturday and I'm still in the spacious and oddly cold Hall H. I have to say that in all my years coming to the Con I have never had the experience of being cold. Walking from the hotel to the Con, waiting in line at the bathroom, to wondering the exhibit hall, I've usually been hot, sometimes sweaty, but never cold. New one on me and a trend I don't mind continuing. I don't like being hot.

Anyway, this time around I'm in Hall H or the Disney / Pixar presentation where they are going to talk about two of their biggest upcoming projects. No, its not another Pirate's film. Instead, the folks from the Mouse house are here to showcase The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian and a Pixar film called Wall E.

Regarding Narnia, Kevin already let you know one of the big announcements from today. But in case you didn't see it or don't feel like clicking, I'll tell you again. Disney and Walden Media announced they intend to make all seven books of the Chronicles as films and release one each May for your viewing pleasure. So, if you're a fan of the books and films that's gotta be pretty great news. That announcement, although pretty exciting, didn't come at the beginning of the presentation, so let's back up and start there.

First up was some of the creative team from the film, including effects supervisor Richard Taylor from WETA Workshop and creature effects creator Howard Berger. They were also joined, via satellite from Prague, by director Andrew Adamson, who proclaimed "Welcome back to Narnia" and Prince Caspian himself, actor Ben Barnes. Then, it was on to a clip showing a pre-viz animatic from the movie.

Although it's almost a year until we can see the second film in the Chronicles of Narnia series, Prince Caspian, news is already starting to spread about the third movie. (The series by C.S. Lewis has seven books, so we may be hearing about Narnia films for the next decade.) The third film in the series will be an adaptation of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and unlike the first two films, Andrew Adamson will not be directing. He's moving into a producer role. Instead, Variety has reported that the director of Dawn Treader will be Michael Apted, as was speculated back in April. Documentary fans might react with, "What, the guy who made the Up films?" And Apted's most recent film was the documentary The Power of the Game. But a look back at his filmography shows Apted has a wide range of feature filmmaking experience, from Coal Miner's Daughter to the Bond movie The World is Not Enough.

Disney and Walden also confirmed that Skandar Keynes and Georgie Henley will be returning as Edmund and Lucy, the roles they've played in the first two films, and Ben Barnes will be reprising his title role from the upcoming Prince Caspian. Peter and Susan do not appear in the book Dawn Treader; instead, Lucy and Edmund are joined by their insufferable cousin Eustace. All three children are faced with a dull summer until something magical happens ... well, you know they'll end up back in Narnia, of course, because that's what the series is about. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is scheduled to start shooting in January 2008, with a planned release on May 1, 2009. Obviously it's important not to wait until the kids look too old for the roles. Although I was a huge fan of the Narnia series as a child, I found the first film, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, to be fairly unmemorable. I remember liking Dawn Treader a lot, and I hope Apted will be able to helm an entertaining movie adaptation.

Prior to its release in print, Warner Bros. has picked up the movie rights to Kit Whitfield's debut novel, Benighted. The book, which apparently deals with "core themes of racism and alienation," is set in an alternate reality in which over 90% of the population is made up of werewolves. The humans who don't go utterly bonkers and wreak bloody havoc on everyone in sight every time there's a full moon are known as "barebacks" (the book's original title in England, where apparently people don't giggle when they hear that word), and are charged with keeping the peace during the chaotic full moons. Which, actually, sounds like a pretty cool concept to me -- at least it's something different, right? The book seems to focus on a young non-werewolf named Lola, who is "a veteran of the Department for the Ongoing Regulation of Lycanthropic Activities," and uncovers some scary stuff when she tries to solve a friend's murder.

Apart from an unusual story, what gives the movie its true potential is that it's being co-produced and developed by none other than Andrew Adamson, who is reportedly looking at the film as something he might direct. Call me crazy, but I think the guy who made The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe sounds like the perfect person to take charge of populating our world with werewolves.

• Bee Season - Richard Gere as a rough-boy sailor in An Officer and a Gentleman? OK. Richard Gere as a singing and dancing attorney in Chicago? Convincing enough. Richard Gere as a Jewish husband (of Juliette Binoche) and father exploring the mysteries of God through the flawless spelling of his daughter? Oy. Many parts of this existential drama about the ways in which a brilliant 11-year-old (Flora Cross) affects her family are sketchy, as no one of the characters is well-drawn enough for us to care about them too much. Genius was captured far better in films like Little Man Tate and Searching For Bobby Fischer.
 

It's been quietly expected since long before The Lion hit the screen - and it become official after opening weekend - that the Narnia film series would not stop at one. Book two in the series (by original publishing/numbering standards) will become movie two in the series; and recently Dean Wright, the Oscar-nominated visual-effects supervisor for the first flick, talked to Sci Fi Wire about their plans for Prince Caspian. According to Dean, although the script isn't written yet, it is very likely that pre-visualization for some of the scenes will begin in the next two months, based on the action of the novel itself. From there, it'll be straight into pre-production, at which point "we'll be going like gangbusters."

Wright discusses some of the more challenging elements of the visual effects work, primarily the creation of Alsan himself. He indicates that amoung the greatest challenges facing his crew will be dousing Aslan in water- which they avoided in the first film, but will find increasingly more difficult to avoid in the future (especially with Voyage of the Dawn Treader looming on the horizon. Read the rest of Wright's comments here.

Every kid has his favorite books. We grow up with them, we cherish them. At the very top of my long list of favorites sits the Narnia series (wrestling with Ender's Game* and a few others). I'm competely thrilled and fanboy excited about the film series- particularly Caspian, as it is among my favorites in the Chronicles. How about you? What novels do you hold dear, and would you like to see them get the silver screen treatment?

*While I love Ender, I hope to never, ever see him on the silver screen.

Mark reported the other day that the team behind The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian was doing a little location-scouting, so the news that the movie is slowly getting its schedule (it will start shooting "later this year," with hopes of a Christmas 2007 release) in order is not exactly revelatory. Very reassuring, however, is this morning's official word that The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe director Andrew Adamson will be directing, producing, and co-writing the project. Interestingly, despite reports to the contrary a few months ago, The Hollywood Reporter indicates that the film's script is yet to be written; if true, this helps explain the far-off release date.

Also returning for Narnia, Part Two are all of the primary actors from the first film. Though this news, also, is less than surprising, the protracted negotiations needed to secure both Adamson and the children were unexpected, and have been more than a little stressful for the folks at Disney and Walden Media. Now that everyone is on board, however, the production is officially moving forward (with or without a script).