Girlz 'N' Games #41: Foxifying Narnia!

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I suppose you can classify this as the Easter edition of Girlz 'N' Games. After all, C.S. Lewis's Narnia Chronicles are packed with Christian symbolism, including a omnipotent lion who sacrifices himself to save a sinful little boy, and is later resurrected to kick some serious White Witch ass.

Anyway, this GNG comic was inspired by the news that the next Narnia Chronicles movie, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader will be co-produced by Fox as opposed to Disney, who helped fund, market and distribute the first 2 films in the series. Pretty much Disney wasn't keen to split the $140 million budget with Narnia rights holders, Walden Media after the last film in the series, Prince Caspian (which cost over $225 million) didn't meet box office expectations.

Fans of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, with its exciting ocean adventures, know it's a fantastic concept for a fantasy film, and nearly impossible to screw up. This said, I'll be watching the involvement of Fox film executives carefully. After all these are the guys who derailed franchises like the Fantastic Four and X-Men, and mangled series like Eragon, Dragonball and The Dark is Rising before they could even take off... all in a misguided attempt to attract and please certain target audiences.

Anyway, I had a lot of fun drawing this strip - I love the first 2 Narnia films, C.S. Lewis's Narnia books are my favourite ever fictional series and I'm still flirting with the idea of getting an Aslan tattoo (if I could ever find a design that doesn't look like the bloody Lion King).

I also had fun thinking up some of the inane and completely inappropriate things Fox could do with this family-friendly franchise. This includes:

- Upping the heartthrob quotient by having Ben Barnes (Prince Caspian) buffed up and shirtless for most of the film.
- Replacing hopelessly fugly Lucy with Hollywood's braindead hottie of the moment.
- Giving Reepicheep the mouse some LL Cool J street cred... and bulk.
- Changing the plot to something sexy and rebellious like Into the Blue's "diving for treasure" storyline.
- And, of course, introducing some horribly unsubtle product placement.

I think all we're missing are speedboat races, and a crew of oiled-up female pirates in bikinis?

Happy Easter, everyone!

Comments

MJenks said…
My wife tells me all the time that I'm too harsh with my criticism of Lucy's unattractiveness. There were times during the Lion, the With and the Wardrobe where I held my hand up in front of me to block her out of the picture.
6:23 PM
Pfangirl said…
Terrible, MJenks, just terrible ;)

Curiously, though, my mother found the little actress incredibly annoying as well; not ugly so much.
2:52 PM
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