The Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian

Prince Caspian moved back to Christmas 2008
In a bitter blow for expectant fans, Exectuve producer Cary Granat has said that the release date for Prince Caspian may be moved back to Christmas 2008 (more from the same interview below).

Beyond Prince Caspian

Filming order discussed
Plans for bringing the remaining Narnia books to the big screen have been discussed by Walden Media in Entertainment Weekly. Exectuve producer Cary Granat said that after Prince Caspian, the books will most likely be filmed in the following order:

3) Voyage of the Dawn Treader
4) The Silver Chair
5) The Magician’s Nephew
6) The Horse and his Boy
7) The Last Battle

Prince Caspian, Voyage of the Dawn Treader and The Silver Chair are intended to form a trilogy.
source: Entertainment Weekly

The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe
Gregson-Williams nominated for award
The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe has been nominated for Best Original Film Score at the prestigious Ivor Novello songwriting awards. The Novello awards are the flagship event of the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters, the trade association for UK music writers. The score for the first Narnia film was penned by Harry Gregson-Williams.
source: icwales

Narnia enters all time box office top 20
Last week, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe entered the worlwide box office all time top 20 by earning $739.6 million. By doing this it knocked The Matrix: Reloaded into 21st position. In the US, the film has earned $291.6 Million, edging ahead of The Empire Strikes Back.
source: Narniaweb

Narnia DVD sales
Buena Vista Home Entertainment’s “The Chronicles of Narnia” held its place as the top selling DVD in the US for the second consecutive week for the week ending April 16.

University of California to host Narnia conference
On Friday May 5, UC Riverside is inviting scholars and fans of C.S. Lewis’ Narnia books to its Through the Wardrobe: A Narnia Conference. The event follows a Pottermania conference staged last October, which drew an enthusiastic, standing-room-only crowd. The Narnia event has already attracted the sponsorship of UC Riverside’s departments of English, Psychology and Religious Studies, Center for Ideas and Society, Visual Culture Program and United Campus Ministry.
source: http://www.newsroom.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/display.cgi?id=1311

Narnia DVD Easter Eggs
For those of you who own the The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe DVD, here are some hidden surprises:

Disc 1 Egg 1
- From the Main Menu press up from any of the Main Menu selections to highlight the shield on top.
- Press enter, you will be treated to a looping “screensaver” of sweeping helicopter shots flying over a still frozen Narnia.
- To exit the “screensaver”, press the menu button on your remote.

Disc 2 Egg 2
- From the Main Menu choose Creating Narnia
- Select Evolution of an Epic
- Highlight Anatomy Of A Scene: The Melting River
- Press left, a yellow symbol will appear on the director’s chair
- Press enter, you will now see Skandar Keynes (Edmund Pevensie) talks about eating too much Turkish Delight

Disc 2 Egg 3
- From the Main Menu select Creatures, Lands & Legends
- Go to the Creatures Of The World section
- Select the wardrobe icon that is underneath the Centaur menu entry
- Press enter and the menu will take you into the Creating Creatures area of the Narnia section
- Select the wardrobe again to return to the Creatures Of The World section

source: dvdtalk

Posted in Chronicles of Narnia •

Following James Cameron’s keynote address on Sunday at the National Association of Broadcasters’ Digital Cinema Summit (reported here), the excitement is already starting to build for the rerelease of Star Wars in 3D.It has been common knowledge that George Lucas has been working on the project for some time, but it now seems certain that it will hit theaters in 2007 to mark the movie’s 30th anniversary.

The company behind the Dimensionalization® of the much loved sci-fi classic is In-Three, based in Westlake Village and Agoura Hills California. Founded in 1999 by Michael C. Kaye, a veteran in post production techniques and an innovator of several patented technologies, In-Three is growing rapidly to accomodate its increasing workload.

Their highly secretive Dimensonalization® process is performed fully in post production. This means that potentially any film can be processed into full 3D and negates the requirement for stereoscopic cameras during filming. Utilising their own tools, artists called Dimensionalists can add depth to 2 dimensional film. It is assumed that individual elements of a scene are isolated and separated into layers to simulate depth (think the OT DVD animated menus taken to the nth degree). Software tools help the artists resolve occlusions (blank spaces left where there is no original information), extract depth information and dimensionally choreograph each scene.

In-three claim that their post production process is actually superior to shooting with dual camera rigs because they can regulate depth properties and have complete control over each shot. Another major bonus of this is that a 3D version can be screened in cinemas with an untouched 2D version preserved for the home market or theaters lacking the necessary equipment. In fact, the content that reaches the veiwers left eye is completely unprocessed. It goes without saying that the potential to dimensionalize studio’s back catalogues is also huge.

To watch Dimensionalized movies, the audience must wear active 3D glasses, produced by partner company NuVision. Because the images are geometrically and mathematically mapped in software and the individual elements don’t stray too close or too deep into the shot, eyestrain is eliminated. According to In-three, dimensionaized movies can be watched comfortably for hours and there will be no ‘blindspots’ in an auditorium.

In-Three technology has already wowed the major studios and has won support from George Lucas, Peter Jackson, James Cameron, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Randal Kleiser, Robert Rodriguez, and many more, but the real test will be just how far audience jaws drop when that seemingly endless Imperial Star Destroyer passes overhead and swallows the Rebel Blockade Runner.

Posted in Commentary, Movies, Star Wars •