Micheal Flaherty on Dawn Treader’s Box Office and the Undragoning

Just in time for today’s Blu-ray/DVD release of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, ChristianityToday has posted an interview with Micheal Flaherty, Walden Media president. Flaherty reiterates that they are making The Magician’s Nephew next because they believe it will draw the largest audience. When asked about Dawn Treader‘s box office performance, he says “international box office was so strong—three times the domestic. We always look at these things from the international standpoint, that cumulative number.” At the end, he says they take the opinions of the “Narnia police” most seriously.

A couple highlights:

On the undragoning: “What’s interesting is that when you read the book, you actually don’t see that scene; Eustace just recounts it when he gets back in the boat. We wanted to show it, but what we ended up doing was reinforcing that message when Eustace says later, “No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t do it myself. And then he came towards me. It was a good hurt.” Visually, I was pleased with it. But yes, there was a response where people wanted to see lion paw firmly placed in dragon flesh and ripping it off. That was a common disappointment.”

On Aslan’s dialogue at the world’s end: “With all the Aslan parts, particularly the dialogue, there’s always a very spirited and healthy discussion, and generally any time there’s a discussion, the tie goes to C. S. Lewis. So we always come to the agreement, ‘Listen, let’s not think that we can reinterpret this and do a better job than Lewis. If we disagree about this, if people think there are different ways to say this, let’s just make sure we preserve what Lewis said.’ That’s a mistake we made with Prince Caspian, where we changed Aslan’s dialogue with Lucy.”

Read the full interview