Fox Picks Up The Narnia Pieces

So it looks like Twentieth Century Fox will be stepping in to help finance the new Narnia movie.

Back in December, Disney got scared of the escalating budget (and lack of return on the last one) and ran off, taking their money with them.

Pending script and budget revisions, Fox and Walden is hoping to begin production on Voyage of the Dawn Treader in the summer for a winter 2010 release.

They plan on scaling down the franchise’s epic $190 million budget to $140 million, with The World Is Not Enough director Michael Apted at the helm.

The first Narnia installment, The Lion, The Witch, And the Wardrobe, grossed $745 million in ticket sales, but its followup, Prince Caspian, generated only little more than half of that in sales.

At this rate, Dawn Treader’s voyage may be its last!