Mark Johnson Talks About Marketing Narnia

In the L.A.Times news story “Hoping to turn books into blockbusters,” Mark Johnson talks a bit about marketing the two Narnia movies so far. “When Mark Johnson was producing The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, released in 2005, he and Walt Disney Pictures were careful to hew to a PG rating. ’We were always concerned that we didn’t want to make it too young, and were worried in our campaign about exposing some of the talking animals. We thought an older audience might say it’s just for little kids,’ Johnson said. He found the problem reversed for last year’s film sequel, Prince Caspian. ’The second was accused of being too old. What happened [is that] it was less about the Narnian creatures than human creatures,’ Johnson said.” Hopefully the third time will be a charm and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader will be just right.