Still, Prince Caspian gave us the single best shot in the entire series: the four Pevensies, armor-clad, riding into dawn as the trees awaken. Pure Narnian majesty. By 2010, Disney had abandoned ship. Fox picked it up on a shoestring budget ($155 million, still sizable but slim compared to the first two). And you can feel the corners being cut. The CGI is patchy. The screenplay rushes through C.S. Lewis’s episodic voyage—Dufflepuds, Dark Island, the sea serpent—like a highlights reel.

So why did it earn less than its predecessor ($419 million)?

The film made $745 million worldwide. For a moment, Narnia was the next big thing. Then came the sophomore slump—but not in quality. Prince Caspian is, paradoxically, the better film in many ways. Darker, more complex, and featuring a medieval siege that rivals Game of Thrones . The Telmarine castle raid is a masterclass in tension. The return of the Pevensies as weary warriors—Peter brooding, Susan hesitant—added a layer of PTSD that the book only hinted at.

But the secret weapon was (of Lord of the Rings fame). Aslan looked like a real, breathing deity—not a cartoon. The Battle of Beruna, while no Helm’s Deep, had grit and consequence. And when Liam Neeson’s Aslan walked to the Stone Table to die for Edmund’s betrayal… audiences wept . In a PG movie. About a lion.

Timing. The Dark Knight had just rewired blockbuster expectations. More critically, Disney fumbled the release, moving it from Christmas to summer, where it competed with Iron Man and Indiana Jones . But the real issue? Faith. The film downplayed Aslan’s role (he shows up late, solves little) and leaned into battle-hardened medievalism. It was a 300 for families—and families weren’t sure they wanted that.

But for a generation of kids who grew up with them, the Narnia films are a touchstone of . Before irony ate everything. Before every fantasy hero had to be morally gray. There was a time when a lion could die for a boy’s betrayal, come back to life, and roar so loudly the ground shook—and we believed it.

And yet… Dawn Treader has a quiet, melancholic beauty. It’s the first film without the older Pevensies (Peter and Susan are “too old” now—a heartbreaking Lewis rule the movie honors). Instead, we follow Edmund, Lucy, and their insufferable cousin Eustace, who gets turned into a dragon and learns humility. The scene where Aslan peels away Eustace’s dragon skin—painful, redemptive, literal—is the most Lewisian moment in all three films.