Prince Caspian To Disappoint Moviegoers Later Than Expected

The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe was a giant box office hit; being full of paedogoats, Jesuslions, annoying children with giant teeth and ginger women stabbing people with some ice.

But The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe - as its massively unwieldy title suggests - isn't the only story about Narnia. CS Lewis wrote loads of them, and most of them were a big lot of arse and not even half as good as The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe. But Disney is determined to make all of the Narnia books into cash films.

The next Narnia film to come out will be Prince Caspian, but the release of Prince Caspian has just been pushed back six months - news which will no doubt disappoint fans of stupid big-faced stageschool kids gasping in wonder at some bloody snow.

The good thing about The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe is that you know exactly what you'll be getting just by reading the title. There's a lion, a witch and a wardrobe. And some infuriatingly earnest children. OK, so it should have been called The Lion, The Witch, The Wardrobe And The Kids You Want To Punch. And A Stupid Old Man. But, anyway you get the idea - the clues are in the title. But Prince Caspian? What does that mean? Who the hell is this man Prince Caspian? Is he good? Bad? A bit creepy like that goatdude from the last one? We just don't know.

Plus, if our memory of the 1980s BBC Narnia TV show serves us correctly, Prince Caspian was a bit rubbish. But maybe Disney and Walden Media know better - after The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe stomped a giant hole in the box office, they're out to remake all the Narnia books, and that means a Prince Caspian movie is on the way. Just not as soon as everyone thought.

Christmas 2007 was supposed to be Prince Caspian season, but Disney has bottled it and shunted it back to a Summer 2008 release. Why? Because there's already one sickeningly twee fantasy movie coming out next Christmas, and Disney don't want moviegoers to see both and then get so violently ill afterwards that they'll never go and see another film so long as they live. Or they don't want the competition, or something.

Anyway, Prince Caspian's Christmas competition would have been Columbia's The Water Horse, a film about a lonely boy staring at an egg for a couple of hours before it turns into a monster and eats him directed by the man who did that John Travolta fireman film that nobody went to see. And, since Walden Media has its fingers in both The Water Horse and Prince Caspian, it will probably be happy about the Prince Caspian shunt.

On the bright side, when Prince Caspian is finally released, the filmmakers will have had extra time to tweak all the special effects, so expect the Prince Caspian Aslan to be around 40% more Jesusy than ever before.

Read more:

Prince Caspian delayed until '08 - E! Online

[story by Stuart Heritage]