There's good news for fans of raffish rodent Reepicheep: 20th Century Fox has picked up the rights to the Chronicles Of Narnia series and started work on a script for Voyage Of The Dawn Treader.
We're hoping Fox can help bring the magic back to Narnia, after the gritty-yet-strangely underwhelming Prince Caspian. They'll be aided and abetted by a more adventuresome storyline, with Dawn Treader reuniting the younger Pevensies with Caspian on a seaborne quest to find Narnia's seven lost lords.
Ben Barnes, Skandar Keynes and Georgie Henley return, joined by Will Poulter, Son Of Rambow's biffer-in-a-beret. Poulter plays Eustace Clarence Scrubb, the Pevensies' deeply disgruntled cousin. No word yet on whether Eddie Izzard will return to voice the punchy mouse, but Michael Apted (The World Is Not Enough, Enigma) has signed on to direct.
The plan is to start shooting Dawn Treader in Australia this summer once all the budgety stuff is out of the way, for a release around November 2010. Fox, who jumped in to partner Walden Media after Disney bailed out on the series, have high hopes for Dawn Treader... the question is, do you?