It’s Narnia Business. 

If you weren’t aware, I hated The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I mean, I really hated it. To me it was indicative of everything that was wrong about the aftershocks of The Lord of the Rings and how difficult it is to both recreate and coast on the massive groundswell of acceptance for fantasy cinema created by the Peter Jackson opus. I don’t equate the fantasy genre to the superhero boom because fantasy in some respects requires a completely different sort of suspension of disbelief where people seem content to watch someone swing around a city without feeling too nerdy. Fantasy has a stigma that can’t be simply washed off. Just about every film that has come out in the wake of the Tolkien flicks has been either overblown, unremarkable, or just plain derivative. Granted, most fantasy literate that followed Tolkien was the same but no one was spending hundreds of millions of dollars for some guy to write books with elves in them.

The success of the first Narnia
movie scared me, because it signaled that the younger generation wasn’t
going to be as discerning with their fantasy properties. I firmly
believe that The Lord of the Rings was
a once in a lifetime event. A perfect melding of property, creator,
time and place, and audience. Somehow it felt genuine, though it ended
up becoming a cash cow. For some reason, Narnia cheapened that.

So, I have to admit that I’m glad that Prince Caspian didn’t instantly take over the box office and rule it with an iron fist. There’s a better iron fist already ruling the box office, and I think this minor setback [the film is still going to bank, just a little more realistically] may actually help keep this franchise in a place of lower expectations and if there’s an Aslan up above… maybe a few less kidie-centric fantasy films being greenlit.

Oh, and just so you know… I am involved in a project currently at Walden and don’t want to wish ill receipts upon them, so I’m not just poo-pooing to be a grumpy dick. I just feel that the fantasy genre is one that is benefited by a very deserving stable of properties and little else. Narnia is one of the golden geese of the genre, but I just don’t find nearly the cinematic depth or coolness to sustain so many films at the same level of awareness, success, and instant goodwill granted to the Harry Potter and J.R.R. Tolkien cornerstones.

– Nick Nunziata killed the Witch with the Lion in the Wardrobe. Professor Plum could not be reached for comment.

Before
I go, here’s the latest thing I’m adding to the blog. Each day I’ll
have a song, a piece of artwork, a photo, a Mary Worth, or something to
further justify your click and to give the trolls a little more ammo.
Today, a look at the upcoming website for KrakenHeads: