Just last month, there came an unexpectedly positive development in the distinctly troubled Narnia franchise, which has suffered from studio chops and changes and occasionally disappointing box office returns. Refusing to give up on the C.S. Lewis-spawned franchise, the company named for him struck a deal with producer Mark Gordon to adapt** The Silver Chair**, and** Life Of Pi**’s David Magee is now on board to write the script.
Magee will be tackling the book, which finds Eustace (played in The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader by Will Poulter) and classmate Jill Pole sent to Narnia by Aslan on a mission to help the now-elderly King Caspian (who we met in Prince Caspian in the form of Ben Barnes) find his missing son. It’s set years (in Narnia time, at least) after Dawn Treader. Eustace and Jill find a much-changed, much-darker Narnia, and have to somehow restore the missing Prince.
Not the easiest tome to turn into a film, then, but given that Magee managed to help make Pi a reality (and scored an Oscar nomination in the process), he’s likely up to the challenge.
"I have always loved The Chronicles of Narnia, and I endlessly imagined myself finding my own passage into Narnia someday," Magee said in a statement picked up by The Hollywood Reporter. "All these years later, I'm getting to fulfil that wish just a little bit by writing the film adaptation of The Silver Chair and could not be more excited about it."
With no director attached yet, expect this one to quest a little further through the dangerous lands of development before making it to our screens.