“Voyage of the Dawn Treader” Named One of the “Notable Films of 2010″

Dark Horizons has listed The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader as one its “notable films of 2010.” Here’s what they have to say:

The budget has been cut to a still substantial but more reasonable $140 million which means less pressure to perform but a tighter control on production. Fox Walden also isn’t as strict as Disney on sanitising the product so the film will hopefully take more risks – that could be one of the reasons Disney opted out (they cited ‘creative differences’). The release is back to the more suitable December slot, while director Michael Apted (“The World is Not Enough,” HBO’s “Rome”) is a far more skilled hand at both drama and action/adventure than previous helmer Andrew Adamson.

Best of all is the story, which lifts much of its basic outline from the best bits of Homer’s “The Odyssey”, is widely considered the best of all the ‘Narnia’ adventures. The script has been adapted by Richard LaGravenese (“A Little Princess,” “The Fisher King”) and Michael Petroni (“Til Human Voices Wake Us,” “Queen of the Damned”) and shooting went smoothly in Queensland, Australia throughout much of the last few months of 2009.

The only downside here could be Walden itself which has been keeping production rather quiet and didn’t have any set visits to the film, even for locally based journalists like myself which has surprised more than a few people. A decently updated production blog is online which is a nice start, but the buzz needs to begin early to make sure this doesn’t go the way of ‘Caspian’. Lets hope the film becomes the hit it could be, because the next book ‘The Silver Chair’ is also one of the best of the series and deserves a big-budget adaptation.

Other notable 2010 films include Dorian Gray, which stars The Voyage of the Dawn Treader‘s Ben Barnes (“King Caspian”); The A-Team, Chloe and Clash of the Titans, all of which star Liam Neeson (“Voice of Aslan”); The Conspirator, which stars James McAvoy (“Tumnus the Faun”); and Creation, based on the biography of Charles Darwin which was written by his great-great-grandson Randal Keynes, father of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader‘s Skandar Keynes (“Edmund”).

You can read Dark Horizon’s full “Dawn Treader” review and see their complete list of notables [well, part 2] here. At the bottom of the webpage you’ll see links for parts 1, 3, and 4.