Michael Petroni Takes Over ‘Dawn Treader’ Script

Initially, it was believed that Stephen Markus and Christopher McFeely would write The Voyage of the Dawn Treader script. Then, in May 2008, Steven Knight was announced as the writer. Less than a month ago, the news broke that Richard LaGravanese had been brought in to write it. Last we heard, Fox and Walden were “still working out budget and script issues.”

Now, according to Variety, Michael Petroni is writing the script. Variety writes: Petroni landed the ‘Narnia’ gig based on his recent work for Fox 2000, including a rewrite of the Kevin Lima directing vehicle ‘Afterlife,’ an adaptation of Markus Zusak’s novel ‘The Book Thief’ and a rewrite of the Julia Roberts starrer ‘Daniel Isn’t Talking. Read the full story here.

The reasons for all these new screenwriters being brought in are not clear. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is a far more linear story than Prince Caspian but perhaps they are finding it difficult to adapt?

Back in June 2007 during the filming of Prince Caspian, Ben Barnes said, “I can’t wait to see what they’re going to do, because obviously it’s quite an episodic book, The Dawn Treader. But it’s really interesting. It’s not quite as action-packed, but it’s so much more interesting in terms of sort of varied experiences that the crew of the Dawn Treader go through. So I’ll be really excited to see what they do in terms of threading it all together as a kind of two-hour movie.”

UPDATE: Douglas Gresham has confirmed for NarniaWeb that Michael Petroni is indeed signed to help script Dawn Treader.

“Michael Petroni is the latest addition to our team,” said the franchise’s co-producer.

“I have been in extended and very encouraging meetings with him the last two days in Los Angeles. I think Michael is an excellent choice for the task and our time together has been very productive, I like most of his ideas and it seems he even likes some of mine. He is also a very nice guy, and an Aussie of Maltese extraction so he has everything going for him.”