Scriptwriter hired for Narnia sequel

By ALAN PERROTT

Disney has confirmed a scriptwriter is being commissioned to work on a follow-up to The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.

A spokesman for New Zealand director Andrew Adamson's big budget project told an audience at the Pulp Culture Expo in Wellington that the writer will create a script for Prince Caspian, the second Narnia novel written by CS Lewis.

But he said a decision on whether the sequel would proceed would not be made until the first movie took off.

While the two books were the first to be written in the Narnia series, they do not follow the accepted sequence for the books.

Disney decided to begin with The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe because it was the best known of the novels, but according to Narnia fan sites and Lewis himself, it was the second novel in chronological order after The Magician's Nephew. Prince Caspian was book four.

The possibility of a second movie was first floated in July by Mark Zoradi, president of Buena Vista International, Disney's foreign distributor.

He told film website Screen Daily that it was an ideal time to begin work on the next screenplay.

No decision has yet been announced on who will provide the voice for Narnia's Lion King, Aslan. Scenes using an animatronic lion have already been shot, including his pivotal death and resurrection scene near the end of the movie.

The Disney-Walden production reportedly boasts a budget of between $150 million and $230 million, making the project the biggest earner to hit Auckland since the America's Cup.

Filming ends in Auckland this month, with the crew shifting to the South Island and the Czech Republic before the scheduled release next year.