In a move that Michael Eisner hopes will demonstrate that there will be life after Pixar for Walt Disney Studios, the Mouse House has signed a deal to co-finance, produce and distribute a live action film version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the best known of C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia series.  The film, which Disney hopes will kick off a fantasy franchise akin to Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, will have a budget of $100 million with filming to begin as early as June in Prague and New Zealand.  Andrew Adamson (Shrek) will direct from a screenplay by Ann Peacock.

The tremendous financial (and artistic) success of the Lord of the Rings films obviously played an important role in Disney's decision to go after the Narnia books.  C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, creator of LOTR, were friends and contemporaries (though Tolkien reportedly disliked the early Narnia books) -- and the use of New Zealand locations is certainly no coincidence.  With six volumes in the Narnia series -the others are The Horse and His Boy, Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Silver Chair, and The Last Battle -- there will be plenty of material for sequels -- a spokesman for Walden Media, which is co-producing with Disney, told Variety, which broke the story: 'On a Production Level we'd like to generate film on some type of regular basis, but whether that is every other year we don't know yet.'

Eisner, who is under increasing pressure from a stockholder's revolt led by Roy Disney, acquired the rights to Jim Henson's Muppets (sans Sesame Street) a few weeks ago in another move calculated to make him look like a man with a plan.  Will these recent moves be enough to placate restive stockholders?  Time will tell, meanwhile Paramount just announced its own potential fantasy blockbuster series, based on Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars series.