Narnia lives on

C. S. Lewis enthusiasts will be glad to know that the Narnia Chronicle films will continue. Although Disney has bowed out, 20th Century Fox will step in as producer.

Disney produced the first two Narnia films ("The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" and "Prince Caspian") but Fox will be at the helm of "Voyage of the Dawn Treader," scheduled for release in 2010.

Both of the first two films became top DVD sellers, but "Prince Caspian" made only $420 million, compared with $745 million for "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe."

Some C.S. Lewis enthusiasts have suggested that Disney chose the wrong moment to back away from Narnia. Many readers consider "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" to be one of the best of  the Narnia books, while "Prince Caspian" (in which Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie are magically whisked into Narnia from a railway platform) is less beloved.

In "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" the two youngest Pevensies, Lucy and Edmund, are living with their cousin Eustace while their parents and Susan are traveling through America. But while their parents are away, Edmund and Lucy – along with Eustace – are drawn into Narnia through a painting of a ship. Caspian (in a ship called the Dawn Treader) is there engaged in a quest to find the seven lost Lords of Narnia.

For committed lovers of Narnia, of course, each book is precious and a certain core audience is guaranteed for any Narnia film. Those who doubt the hold of Narnia on its readers, even long into adulthood, have only to pick up Laura Miller's 2008 tribute "The Magician's Book: A Skeptic's Adventures in Narnia."