The problem (well, one of the problems) with the Narnia novels as basis for a long series of films is character consistency. Harry Potter, the series Disney would love to emulate, has a solid core set of characters, but the kids who anchor The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian don’t all carry on to the other books. Worse, some of their replacements are incredibly irritating.
Take Eustace Scrubb, the pain the arse cousin of the Pevensie kids who joins Edmund and Lucy in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. As a kid I hated the character, and just the thought of watching him in a third Narnia film was enough to make me dread that voyage even more than I would another Narnia flick with the same character set.
But the news that Will Poulter, the bully-ish kid from Son of Rambow, might be playing Eustace marks a sort of turnaround. [The Daily Mail via Coming Soon] I can see Poulter making a staggeringly perfect Eustace, which is to say that he’ll be wildly selfish yet interesting and watchable.
Another factoid that might make Dawn Treader more palatable: I noticed just now that the fantastic Dante Spinotti is signed to shoot the picture. That could make for a far more visually lively flick than we’ve seen in the series so far.
Anyone who actually follows the link and reads the original Daily Mail article will find another big piece of potential casting news. I’m not sleeping on that, just waiting for some secondary confirmation before trumpeting it all over the front page, because I don’t trust the fishwrap DM.