Why We Can't Wait to See It: After waiting for years for a quality theatrical adaptation of C.S. Lewis's beloved Narnia series, the first film, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, didn't disappoint. Will the darker, more action-packed tale of Prince Caspian continue to impress fans of the books?

Why It Might Do Well: The best-selling series has a built-in fan base with families, Christians, and fantasy fans. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe grossed over $740,000,000 worldwide off an estimated $180,000,000 budget. This installment also boasts the addition of Ben Barnes as the handsome Prince Caspian, which could draw in the tween and teen market.

Why It Might Not Do Well: Producer Mark Johnson confirmed at the Narnia panel at New York Comic Con that the Mouse House plans to stop the franchise after filming Voyage of the Dawn Treader -- news that might not sit well with hardcore Narnia fans who were hoping to see all of the series brought to life. Also, the kid market has been rather flooded with fantasy films of late; The Spiderwick Chronicles brought in a dismal $70 million domestically off a $90 million budget, and Abigail Breslin starrer Nim's Island just over $32 million off a $34 million budget. Could interest in fantasy films be waning?

Fun Fact: Work on the script for Prince Caspian was started during the shooting of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, so filming on the sequel could begin as soon as possible, before the four children playing the leads visibly aged. Prince Caspian starts just one year in "Earth time" after the end of the first book.

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Before anyone gets too excited, I should clarify: Jerry Bruckheimer will not be remaking the classic anime Battle of The Planets. Variety reports that Gabriel Casseus (Black Hawk Down) has joined the cast of G-Force, a mix of live action and CGI about "a group of genetically enhanced animal commandos trying to prevent an evil billionaire from taking over the world. Casseus will play an NSA agent who is trying to track down the commandos". The actor has also already sold his script for the action film, Bone Deep, which he will produce and, additionally will take a stab at directing the horror-comedy Boyz in the Wood (and it might just be me, but that sounds awfully similar to the 'urban horror' flick Tales from The Hood released back in 1995).

Bruckheimer has been working on the family-friendly action flick since 2004, but his previous engagements -- mainly Pirates of The Caribbean sequels -- have kept the mega-producer bus for the last few years. Now it looks like G-Force is getting the green light for a Summer 2009 release (previous reports even had Disney putting the brakes on the third installment of Narnia to focus on the action flick instead). Already signed to direct G-Force is Hoyt Yeatman, a Visual Effects Supervisor, who will make his directorial debut. Yeatman is an Oscar winner who has worked on everything from The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension to the Underdog update released back in August. G-Force is scheduled for release on May 1st, 2009.

*Correction: Image has been updated.

Disney's completely packed panel was about all things Narnia this afternoon, and the biggest piece of news was the fact that they'll be releasing a new Chronicles of Narnia film every May, starting with Prince Caspian 2008, and continuing through the rest of the seven books.

While that's fairly exciting news, I sure hope that doesn't mean the films will suffer as a result. It takes a lot of time and effort to make a film replete with special effects that's based on a classic series ... will they be able to keep that up? With five more movies yet to come after next May, that's a lot of simultaneous work that'll be going on. If the movies end up being disappointing in any way, the first thing people will blame will be a rushed production schedule.

Still, as long as they do some serious justice to The Magician's Nephew, I'm all for it. There's nothing more frustrating than waiting years for the next installment in one of your favorite film series to come out.

Picturehouse has acquired the U.S. rights to The Fox & the Child, the first narrative film from the team that created The March of the Penguins. If you're one of two people not familiar with that movie, it was last year's surprise smash, winner of the Best Documentary Feature Academy Award, and even spawned a full-length spoof. Since The Fox is also being listed on imdb as Le Renard et l'enfant, I'm betting this will be a French film (I'm excellent with languages). The Fox and the Child is currently in production, with Penguins director Luc Jacquet both writing and directing.

Variety reports that the film is based on Jacquet's own childhood experiences. Seeing that the film tells the story of a little girl who goes into the woods and winds up entering a different dimension by following in a fox's footsteps, I'd say Jacquet had a much more exciting childhood than I did! The story sounds very Chronic - what?- cles of Narnia to me, hopefully these guys will put a new spin on things. Jacquet has his work cut out for him -- the switch from documentary to narrative filmmaking is one that several doc makers haven't made that smoothly. See Michael Moore's Canadian Bacon. Actually...don't. No word on casting for The Fox, but let me just suggest either Jamie, Matthew, or Michael J.

Barnyard: The Original Party Animals -- Only worth renting if your kids have already seen The Ant Bully, Flushed Away, Happy Feet, Ice Age 2, Open Season, Over the Hedge and The Wild. (At least three times apiece.) Plot: A bunch of cows do silly things in a barnyard. Extras include filmmaker commentary, four featurettes, seven deleted scenes, two music videos, etc.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe -- You know how New Line released those really nifty "extended edition" DVDs for The Lord of the Rings? Yeah, well Disney liked that idea so here comes the mega-huge Narnia release, complete with seven additional minutes of in-movie footage, three lengthy audio commentaries, and two full discs over-stuffed with lions and witches and wardrobes, oh my.

The Devil Wears Prada -- The chick-flick version of Hostel. Anne Hathaway plays a "fat girl" who allows herself to be abused by the evil boss Meryl Streep just long enough to earn an oh-so-important life lesson. Extras include a filmmaker commentary, four featurettes, a bunch of deleted scenes and other random trinkets.

Material Girls -- One of the worst studio releases of the past 15 years. Stunningly bad. Highly recommended, however, if you happen to be a member of the Duff family. Anyone who can make it more than 15 minutes into Martha Coolidge's audio commentary has the fortitude of an Egyptian pyramid-builder. Featurettes and music videos are also included.

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby -- Will Ferrell brings his patented brand of stream-of-consciousness goofiness to the easy-target world of NASCAR, and the result is a movie just as funny as we expected it to be. OK, so it's not Anchorman, but it's still packed with laughs. (Plus John C.Reilly, Sacha Baron Cohen and Amy Adams are actually allowed to steal a few scenes, with makes me think even more of Ferrell as a comedian.) Snag the unrated edition for extra footage and a truckload of commentaries, featurettes, deleted scenes, bloopers, promos and more assorted silliness.

World Trade Center -- The year's second 9/11 movie takes a decidedly different approach than its predecessor (United 93) and turns out to be one of Oliver Stone's more accessible projects. The horrible date is re-captured in chillingly realistic fashion, the performances are pretty great across the board, and the extra features (in the 2-disc commemorative edition) are as informative as they are entertaining. Fans of the film can pick through two separate audio commentaries and a second disc filled with mini-documentaries on the film, the survivors and the event itself.

You may or may not recognize the name of William Moseley. The young man played High King Peter in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe flick, and will return to reprise the role in the upcoming sequel, Prince Caspian. If you don't recognize his name, I wouldn't worry about it, because unlike Radcliffe and the stars of the Potter-verse, the children in Narnia will not be around for the full seven book run. Peter, in fact, will drop off after book two* and won't show up again in a major role until book seven.**

The Hook caught up with William Moseley recently and picked his brain for thoughts on the next flick. Moseley, like everyone else involved with the film, was not able to say much, because "They're keeping it really hush-hush. Whether it's even finished, I don't know." However, Moseley did verify shooting is still set to begin in January, and they expect it to carry well into summer. Moseley also talked about the challenge of acting opposite non-existent CGI characters, and had a very interesting take on it: "When you imagine Aslan you just see some highly individual perception-- I saw a majestic creature. I enjoyed being able to create my own Aslan instead of someone else putting it there in front of me." This makes a lot of sense to me. Moseley, like millions of the rest of us, has read and known Narnia since childhood; of course he had a personal vision of Aslan in mind. We all envision the characters and places we love in great books -- Lewis' description of heaven at the end of The Last Battle has served as my mental image of heaven since I was a child. Moseley was just lucky enough to be a part of his own imagination on the biggest stage in the world.

*Yeah, I'm using the original numbering and not the new chronological numbering. It is how the movies chose to deal with it, which I feel validates my long argued point that the magic of Narnia works best when revealed in the original order. Yes, I know Lewis was cool with chronological order, but I still prefer published order.
**Let's put aside the discussion of grown-up Peter in The Horse and His Boy until we learn how they plan to cast him.

Walden Media is chugging along in their efforts to bring Susan Cooper's excellent young adult fantasy The Dark is Rising to the big screen. They announced today that they have hired David Cunningham to direct the film, straight off of his controversial The Path to 9/11 television movie. The film had previously been in development by Jim Henson Pictures, going as far back as 1997, although Walden acquired the rights to the five-part series in May of 2005.

Cunningham is a talented director, but has yet to prove himself in features. Additionally, most of his credits come from documentary work, or from adaptations of true stories. Before 9/11 he directed the miniseries version of Little House on the Prairie , and his next film is a documentary about urban explorers called After ..., which is about people who sneak into "the planet's most dangerous man-made structures, just because they can." Hopefully he can make the leap into fantasy from the real world he's so used to covering.

I read The Dark is Rising when I was just starting junior high school, and it set the bar for all of the fantasy books I read afterwards. Cooper's Rising series is very dark (no pun intended), and focuses on young Will Stanton who finds out on his eleventh birthday that he must take on the Dark by himself, while looking for and gathering six different Signs of the Light. This isn't a Harry Potter book, which would be considered light and cheerful by comparison, but it is extremely rich in story and detail, especially for a book meant for young readers.

This also shows just how far the success of The Lord of the Rings has swung the gate open for the fantasy genre. Since then studios have acquired and greenlit book adaptations like Eragon, His Dark Materials, The Chronicles of Narnia (which had been in development for a long time, but the success of LOTR helped serve as a catalyst), and others are sure to follow. It's a great time to be a fantasy fan, as long as the adaptations can stand up to the rich source material.

Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of The Dark is Rising at your local bookstore or library and read it before the movie comes out. Hopefully you'll enjoy the story in both forms.

As production for The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (the sequel to The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe )slowly starts up, one key piece of the puzzle remains; namely, the title character. All four of the children from the first flick will be returning to reprise their roles, but the studio has yet to cast the young Prince Caspian himself -- a key role, as the character is not only the title character in this film, he will appear prominently in the third film, as well. Preliminary auditions for the part have been held in England, with more still to come. The final decision will likely not be made until next month, when director Andrew Adamson can fly over and make a final decision.

Additionally, casting has begun for extras of Spanish and Mediterranean descent to portray the Telmarines who invaded and subdued Narnia between the time periods of Wardrobe and Caspian. Apparently, if you're willing to part with a small donation fee, you can apply for such a role at StarsinMyEyes. Nice to see some action happening on this flick -- I'm really looking forward to it.

Despite the fact that some commenters doubted the movie would ever reach production when it was announced late last year, Universal is pushing ahead with its screen version of Wanted, a dark series of comic books by Mark Millar. In the hands of Russian director Timur Bekmambetov (Night Watch and its sequels) since December, the movie now also has its star: According to The Hollywood Reporter, Scotsman James McAvoy has been signed to play the movie's main character, a young man who, after his father's death, discovers that dad was an ass-kicking supervillain. Though he's currently best know for playing Mr. Tumnus in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, McAvoy has several movies coming out in the next few months, including Starter for Ten (in which he's quite good) and The Last King of Scotland -- hopefully those films will teach the world that his ears are not actually pointed.

Described as a priority for Universal, Wanted is scheduled to go into production early next year, with a "reasonable" budget of under $100 million.

It may not be much, but here is a bit of news for those of you anxiously awaiting action on Prince Caspian, the sequel to the hit fantasy literature film Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. Yours truly, for one, can't wait -- Caspian may well be my favorite book of the Chronicles, competing with only The Last Battle.*  BANG Showbiz recently caught up with Anna Popplewell (Susan of Narnia) and took a moment to discuss her return to the magical land. Popplewell said that while she is usually well out of the loop, she knows the producers are "out scouting locations at the moment" and she's been told shooting will start early next year with all major cast members excited to be returning.

On a personal note, Popplewell admitted she wants to once again try to get a name-drop for her hometown of Finchely worked into the second film. She said she was "over the moon" when she learned it made the cut for Wardrobe, and she hopes to be just as successful this time around. We're currently looking at a summer of 08 release for the film -- a bit later than originally desired, but still reasonably timely. Unlike some series, Narnia has less to worry about with aging child actors -- the four children are only featured all together in two books, and the youngest two kids in three books. Okay, yeah, it'll get tricky if they ever make it to The Last Battle, but they can cross that bridge when they get there.

*I know, Last Battle is not typically a favorite.