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.

One of the most versatile filmmakers around, Michael Apted is no stranger to picking up franchises that were begun by other people. Most respected is his continued following of up of 14 individuals, who have been presented every seven years in what are collectively known as the _ Up documentaries (49 Up was the most recent). He took that project -- which was not originally intended as a lifelong series -- over from Paul Almond, director of Seven Up!, for which Apted served as a researcher. A few years ago, he took on the 007 franchise for a single shot effort, The World is Not Enough. Now a little bird has told Harry Knowles at Aint it Cool News that Apted will be taking over the Chronicles of Narnia series.

I haven't seen the first of the Narnia movies, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and I wasn't planning on it, but now I'm gaining some interest. Franchises are always more appealing to me when they switch up directors midstream. It worked great for the Harry Potter movies, which completely raised their cred by bringing in Alfonso Cuarón for the third installment, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, following Chris Columbus' welcome departure after the first two. Apted may not be as great a filmmaker as Cuarón -- I lost interest in his fiction filmmaking after the J. Lo vehicle Enough (not to be confused with his James Bond effort) -- but he should bring some freshness to the Narnia movies. If the little bird is correct, he will take on the third movie, The Voyage of the Dawn Trader, which also currently is rumored to have Neil Burger attached. One or the other will replace Andrew Adamson, who, like Columbus, has been the series' director for the first two installments -- he is currently directing the second, Prince Caspian.

There aren't too many movies that necessitate sequels. Unless a movie is part of a pre-proposed series or is an adaptation of a series of books, it should probably be able to stand alone. But a lot of sequels come from movies that are perfect by themselves -- sometimes the sequels compliment nicely; sometimes they are easily ignored; occasionally they actually take away from the previously regarded original.

It isn't often that a movie screams out for a sequel, but I think I've come up with seven that at least whisper a request for one. Two actually have source sequels that they would be adapted from. One has a lot of history to mine material from. Three of them have been discussed at length at different points in time by makers of the original(s). The problem is that none of these sequels is likely to ever grace your DVD player let alone your local theater. For whatever reason, they simply have too much against them in the minds of studio execs. For now, though, we can dream.

1. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (sequel to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

Even with the incredible cast and the surprisingly faithful-enough script, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was not the epic that I was hoping for. It also wasn't the blockbuster that Disney was hoping for. The filmmakers, Garth Jennings and Nick Goldsmith (aka Hammer and Tongs) and the necessary actors had signed on for the sequel, to be adapted from Adam's follow-up, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, but it appears to be dead in the water. Despite my few reservations with the first film, I would love to see the sequel, as well as the rest of the series (they could end before The Salmon of Doubt, I guess). I remember being bored with some of the prehistoric Earth sequences in Restaurant, but I think they'd make for great cinema. In any event, I think Martin Freeman and Mos Def were a great duo in the original, and they alone should have been propelled to stardom following its release. Maybe they can appear in something else together.

The holiday season is the time to ask for those big items you've been wanting all year, those toys or gadgets or appliances or DVDs that were just too expensive to splurge on with your own money. And now, with the holidays being so associated with the expectation of gifts, Christmas lists (and Hanukkah lists and Kwanzaa lists, etc.) are made by kids and adults alike. Nobody wants to receive a gift they don't desire, and nobody wants to buy a present that the recipient will not like, so it is now common to go ahead and tell Santa, your parents, your spouse and/or your friends exactly what you want from them. And depending on the gift-giver, you probably will wish for ask for tell them to get you something big.

When it comes to movies, single-title DVDs just aren't going to cut it. Criterion editions are almost there, but not quite. No, for your present demands, you need something bigger, like a box set. The same can be said for DVDs as it can be for CDs, that box sets are the greatest gifts for the holidays because few people purchase them at regular times of the year. Nowadays there are DVD sets for just about every movie fan. For the documentary lover, however, there are some titles that must be purchased in a box set (due to them being series), and many of them are essentials.

Be sure to be specific on your list, because there are a lot of cheap doc sets out there that might be interesting to watch, but which are not well made and which were definitely bought at the nearby drugstore rather than the video shop. Don't let your gift-giver be confused and/or frugal. And if you are the gift-giver, this list may be a good source for ideas for what to buy your gift-receiver, but keep in mind that documentaries can be an acquired taste for some. Sure, a baseball fan may be into Ken Burns' Baseball and a jazz fan should enjoy Burns' Jazz, but you really never know for sure unless they tell you so directly. And at doc box prices, you don't want to go wasting your money.

Hey, did you know Casino Royale was coming out this Friday? After a four-year wait, we now have a new Bond in Daniel Craig, as well as a new direction for the entire franchise. Early reviews indicate the film is wicked cool, and I for one am very excited about it. Martin Campbell returns to the directing chair, having last helmed 1995's Goldeneye. He becomes the first director since John Glen (who directed a whopping five Bond films) to direct more than one 007 flick. (The other three dudes to do that were Guy Hamilton, Lewis Gilbert and Terence Young.) Royale's Bond girls (Eva Green and Caterina Murino) look perfect -- a combination of sexy, exotic and dangerous -- which is something the last few Bond films have lacked. Am I leaving anything out? Oh yeah, the bad guy. Does it get any better than Mads Mikkelsen?

For your viewing pleasure, Cinematical has already kicked off its Seven Days of 007 feature. For the next seven days, we'll be taking a closer look at James Bond, his girls, his enemies and the twenty films that we have either grown to love or loved to hate. Where will Casino Royale fit in? In just a couple of days, we'll have our answer. However, before we begin gushing over the legendary character, I'd like to know which Bond films failed to entertain. Which ones did you absolutely hate? For me, it's a toss up between A View to a Kill and The World is Not Enough. The latter I dislike for obvious reasons -- c'mon, you can't do any better than Denise Richards? The girl was a complete moron -- but besides that -- who's bright idea was it to have Michael Apted direct this flick? Sure, the guy is great at what he does, but boy did he fail here. As far as A View to a Kill is concerned, aside from a groovy song by Duran Duran, was I the only one who was completely freaked out by Grace Jones. Ugh, just thinking about her in this film gives me the bad kind of goose bumps. And while Christopher Walken should have been an awesome bad guy, in my opinion, his talent was completely wasted.

So, I ask you: Which films showed James Bond at his worst?

Just in case you missed them the first time around, here's a round-up of what we've been talking about on Cinematical this week:

Interviews, Columns, and Hot Topics

• Ryan Stewart Interviews 49 Up's Michael Apted
• What Makes a Black Film Authentic?
• Kevin Costner as Neo?!? And Other Near Disasters
• Erik Davis Covers The Departed Junket
• Jim Carrey Ain't Got No Game
• Cinematical Seven: The "Retro-Movie" Videogames
• Jeff Anderson's 400 Screens, 400 Blows: Streep Smart
• Mark Beall's Geek Beat: Marvel Musings
• Should a Film's Subjects Have a Say in Its Rating?
• Does the World Really Need Mr. Woodcock?
• Scene Stealers: Tom Wilson
• Film Blog Group Hug: Enter Witty Post Title Here
• Major Shakeup at Village Voice Leaves Only J Hoberman Standing

More, much more, after the jump ...

No one has died yet. That's the good news. The bad news is that this seventh chapter of the landmark 7 Up documentary series, which is chronicling the entire lives of several ordinary Britons, may well be the final entry. To hear the series' long-time director Michael Apted tell it, the patience, personal attention and constant persuasion needed to convince the film's subjects to sit for their psychological portrait every seven years means the series is not likely to survive beyond him. He will be 72 when it comes time to do 56 Up. When it does finally come to an end, this series will be hailed as a crowning achievement of cinema – one that stretches the muscles of the medium in a way that only a handful of other projects have. Originally conceived as an indictment of the British class system (half the children chosen were poor and half rich) it has grown beyond its original mandate into a visceral study of humanity itself, capturing its frailties, potential and inexorable motion towards the finish line.

None of the children, who were first filmed in 1964, tumbling on a playground and offering cheeky commentary on any subject you like, have gone on to have noticeably 'big' lives. One became a wig-wearing barrister in the British court system, and seems perpetually embarrassed that he doesn't have anything dramatic to report to us. Another became a professor and moved to America, causing his British accent to be mostly eroded away. Another became an Australian at an early age. The poor kids have by and large become lower-middle class adults and remain within shouting distance of the Eastend neighborhoods where they were born. One notable exception is Tony, the scrappy hustler who dreamed of being a jockey as a child and later settled into the disappointment of being a taxi driver. Vocally dissatisfied with the demographic changes that have taken place in the Eastend since his boyhood, Tony and his wife have staked a claim in a Little England area of Spain. "It's 96 percent English here," he defiantly tells us.

Jesuit maxim: "Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man." That's the inspiration for the 7 Up documentary series, which has been interviewing the same group of British subjects at seven year intervals since 1964, when they were each seven years old. In the first film, they are seen in sharp black and white, bouncing off the walls and full of quips like pre-school Beatles. At age 21, we see them in the gauzy color of 70s film stock. They are faux-rebellious chain-smokers, reflective and cool-headed, with all the time in the world to spare. At 28, they are still young, but they've made choices that can't be un-made. They are like adults-in-training. At 42, they are heartbreaking. Youth has quietly slipped away. Spouses have come and gone, and the answers they give to the interview questions are things like..."We both knew it wasn't going any further..."

Now at 49, old age is rapidly approaching, but they are still the same people. The ones who have always seemed buoyant are still that way. Tony, [pictured above] the poor Eastend kid who was hustling as a taxi driver at 28 now owns his own taxi service. He has kids and grandkids and seems bemused at the minor celebrity bestowed on him by the 7 Up series. Jackie, who in her twenties mocked the women she saw pushing baby carriages down the street, now seems lonely and regretful. Simon, a black orphan whose white mother wanted nothing to do with him, is now compelled to open his home to the most hopeless foster children. "One child had two knives in his hands," he tells us.

Cinematical recently spoke with director Michael Apted, who began his involvement with the series as a young researcher on 7 Up and now keeps the project alive. Although he's too mannered and too British to admit it, Apted seems to have internalized what many critics have already noted: that 7 Up may be the most important documentary project of all time.

Back in 1964, as part of a special for the UK's World in Action television series, director Michael Apted (along with WIA founder Tim Hewat) documented the lives of several seven-year-olds. The program, inspired by the Jesuit saying "Give me the child until he is seven and I will show you the man", attempted to uncover whether or not the children's lives were already pre-determined by their backgrounds and the rigid class system of 1960s Britain. Little did they know this one special (and subsequent follow-up films) would become wildly popular, winning several awards and changing the face of "the documentary" as we knew it. In fact, some might refer to the Up Series as our very first taste of reality television, a phenomenon that would reach its peak in-between 42 Up and Apted's latest visit with old friends, 49 Up.

For the past five decades, Apted has re-visited the same group of people (minus one or two who have dropped out along the way) in order to show us what became of their lives, their dreams, their marriages and their families. In this latest edition of the series, Apted updates us on 13 of the original cast (all 49-years-old) to see how their lives have changed in the past seven years.

Samuel Goldwyn Pictures seems to see a huge American audience for foreign, Kirsten Dunst-free period drama that no one else has noticed. To that end, they've picked up the rights to Michael Apted's Amazing Grace, a movie that phantom audience is sure to devour: The film stars a trio of talented actors who are also non-draws in the US (Ioan Gruffudd, Albert Finney and Romola Garai), and is a biopic of William Wilberforce, an 18th-century British abolitionist. Yes, 90% of America just fell asleep.

Now to me, this sounds awesome (as does the distributor's insane-yet-admirable plan to collaborate with Walden Media on a "comprehensive marketing initiative" addressing modern slavery, and urging social action) -- but you know I'm a history nerd who enjoys reading books about things like maps and 15th-century monarchs. And moviegoers like me will earn this film what, $4,000 on its opening weekend next February? If you're not yet convinced that everyone at SGP has lost their minds (albeit in a wonderfully ambitious way), get this: The release date has been schedule to fall on the 200th anniversary of Parliament's vote to end slavery in all British-controlled territories. If anyone cares about this, I will be the happiest wrong person on earth, but really, the chances seems very, very slim.