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“The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” will be airing on ABC Family tonight at 7:30pm EST. Thanks to ’FencerforJesus’ for the reminder.
UPDATE: It was the Extended Edition that aired.

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It’s official! After five agonizing weeks of waiting for news, it has been announced that Fox will co-finance The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader with Walden Media! According to Variety, “the two sides are still working out budget and script issues, but the hope is to shoot the film at the end of summer for a holiday 2010 release through the Fox Walden label.” Walden still controls the movie rights to the books.

It is also revealed that “Richard LaGravanese penned the most recent draft that both Walden and Fox were happy with, but there’s a question about his availability because he has been adapting Sara Gruen’s bestseller ‘Water for Elephants’ for Fox 2000.”

Michael Apted will still direct and Ben Barnes, Skandar Keynes, and Georgie Henley will reprise their roles. Will Poulter is also still set to play Eustace.

Interesting Fact: Fox is owned by News Corp, which also owns HarperCollins (Narnia publisher).

NarniaWeb welcomes Fox to the land of Narnia!

Read the full report here

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian has been nominated for the category of sound editing by the Motion Picture Sound Editors’ organization. The awards will be presented at the 56th annual Golden Reel Awards on February 21, 2009. You can read Variety’s full article here.

The nominations for the 81st Annual Academy Awards were announced this morning, and Prince Caspian received none (this was already known since it was not a finalist in any of the categories). Iron Man received two, Kung Fu Panda one, WALL*E six, and The Dark Knight eight. In 2006, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was nominated for Sound Mixing, Visual Effects, and Makeup (Howard Berger and Tami Lane won for Makeup).

It is a rather uncomfortable time for Narnia fans right now as Walden Media continues its search for a studio to distribute “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.” Many fans have expressed concern that the franchise cannot survive without Walt Disney Pictures even though Walden Media is still committed to it.

A new blog post from the Los Angeles Times shines a ray of hope into the land of Narnia.

The blog claims to have the “secret history” of why Disney backed out, and ends by saying that a few major studios (Fox, Sony, Warners) have expressed interest in picking up ‘Dawn Treader,’ and Walden Media could announce a new deal as early as later this week. You can view the article here. I’d recommend reading the entire thing, but here are some of the highlights:

• PC cost $225m to produce and $175m to market
• After LWW hit theaters, Phil Anschutz demanded that Disney either give back a sizable chunk of its distribution fee or he would distribute the Narnia series on his own. Disney complied. But after PC grossed less than expected, Disney decided to back out.
• Disney wanted a Summer release for PC because they saw that it was an edgier, more youth-oriented film and wanted to go for teenagers as well as well as families.
• Walden could announce a new deal as early as later this week.
• 20th Century Fox is interested, having seriously considered acquiring the movie rights to Narnia even before Walden originally landed the franchise. Sony and Warner Bros. have also expressed interest.
• Walden has been aiming for a $140m budget for VDT.

Thanks to Candy for the alert!

Prince Caspian has been nominated for a Visual Effects Society Award. It is up against Iron Man and The Dark Knight among several others. You can view the full story here. Thanks to GlimGlum for the report!

Goldcoast.com is reporting that Voyage of the Dawn Treader may be heading for Australia’s Gold Coast. The article states that “THE Gold Coast’s Warner Roadshow Studios have been tipped to house the $150 million production The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Industry insiders say Walden Media has been scouting for locations in Queensland and New South Wales to shoot the third instalment of the series this year.” Click here to read the full story. Thanks to Mike for the link!

Running time: 35:29 Well it has been a long time since our last podcast. Between college, the holidays and trying to get a commentary finished, we just didn’t have time. But we’re back! Rilian and glumPuddle discuss the whole situation with Disney, Walden and the Chronicles. We give our opinions as well as discuss how most people are feeling at this time.

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In a new poll of 600 adult readers, the character of The White Witch was named the scariest of them all. The poll by Penguin Books was compiled to celebrate the publication of Mr Toppit, a novel based on children’s writer Arthur Hayman. In second place was Captain Hook from Peter Pan, and the Grand High Witch from Roald Dahl’s 1983 book The Witches took third place. Voldemort (from the Harry Potter series) was all the way down in sixth place. To read the whole list, click here. Thanks to Yellow Peril for the link.

We’ve had a fair number of people point out to us that according to Wikipedia’s Narnia page, “On January 14, Disney renegotiated with Walden Media to produce the movie after coming to an agreement on the budget of the [Voyage of the Dawn Treader].” We’ve heard nothing official about this news, and whoever edited the page has not cited a source. Please be aware that anyone can update that page and you should always be skeptical of what is written on Wikipedia. If anyone does find something more official, please send us a spy report! UPDATE: The Wikipedia entry has been removed and we haven’t received any indication that VDT has been picked up yet. It’s safe to assume this was a hoax.