The Chronicles of Narnia franchise is heading back to the big screen. Disney set about adapting author C.S. Lewis’ fantasy series with 2005’s The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, which was then followed by the sequels The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, but the franchise came to a halt soon after the 2010 release of Voyage with little movement in the ensuing years. This past January, however, Collider’s own Haleigh Foutch learned from producer Mark Gordon that the series was getting a reboot with an adaptation of the fourth book, The Silver Chair:

“It’s all going to be a brand new franchise. All original. All original characters, different directors, and an entire new team that this is coming from.”

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At the time the project wasn’t yet set up at a studio, but now Deadline reports that the Sony-based TriStar Pictures is teaming up with The Mark Gordon Company, The C.S. Lewis Company, and eOne to bring The Silver Chair to fruition.


Life of Pi and Finding Neverland scribe David Magee is onboard to write the script, and The Silver Chair actually lends itself to a franchise reboot quite well. The story picks up decades after the events of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in Narnia time, with Prince Caspian X now an old man whose son and only heir goes missing. Aslan the lion then sends a pair of children from England to Narnia to attempt to recover him.

Disney’s first Chronicles of Narnia film was quite successful, as The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe grossed $745 million worldwide. Its sequel, however, amassed only $419 million in 2008, and Disney subsequently dropped the franchise. Fox 2000 continued on with The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which kept the cast intact and grossed a respectable $415 million, but given that it was basically just on par with its predecessor, Fox 2000 didn’t see a future in the series and called it a day.

Now TriStar—operating under a new mandate from Sony head Tom Rothman to seek literary material that will travel worldwide—is taking a crack at it with an entirely new creative team, introducing a new generation to Lewis’ beloved book series.

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Image via 20th Century Fox

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