Walden Media

Walden Media, the producer of family films backed by billionaire Philip Anschutz, is in discussions to hire former Walt Disney Co. executive Nina Jacobson in a senior post amid a restructuring of the company. The moves follow a spotty track record for Walden's films, which, despite the firm's 2005 blockbuster "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" and its ambitions to compete with Disney in family entertainment, have had limited success at the box office.

Hoping to infuse his struggling movie company with fresh ideas and generate more box-office hits, Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz has brought in a new creative chief at Walden Media. Michael Bostick, formerly a top executive at Imagine Films who most recently headed comedy director Tom Shadyac's production company, will as co-chief executive oversee the development and acquisition of new family films at Walden and adult fare at its sister label, Bristol Bay Productions.

NEW YORK -- Walden Media, which has produced 15 films based on children's books, is getting into the publishing business in conjunction with HarperCollins. The company, which has adapted such HarperCollins titles as "The Chronicles of Narnia," "Bridge to Terabithia" and "Charlotte's Web" for the screen, will be launching Walden Pond Press, acquiring and publishing books for children, the companies said Monday.

Walden Media co-Chief Executive Cary Granat is leaving the company, the latest shake-up to hit billionaire Philip Anschutz's entertainment firm. The move came as little surprise. It had been widely known in Hollywood that Walden management had been interviewing potential successors, including former Disney Studios executive Nina Jacobson. In March, the Century City-based company hired ex-Imagine Films President Michael Bostick as its top creative executive.

As Hollywood grapples with the difficult economics of its business, Walt Disney Studios has canceled plans to partner on the next film in the "Chronicles of Narnia" series, "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader." A Disney spokeswoman confirmed Wednesday that the Burbank studio decided not to exercise its option to co- finance the third movie in the franchise based on C.S. Lewis' classic children's books because of "budgetary considerations."

The American Girl empire is pushing into a new frontier--movie theaters. Walden Media, the independent production company owned by Colorado multibillionaire Philip Anschutz, will team with the makers of American Girl dolls to produce a film about one of the toy line's most popular young heroines, Kit Kittredge.

Fox Filmed Entertainment struck a deal Tuesday with billionaire Philip Anschutz's movie company to take aim at the biggest name in family entertainment: Walt Disney Co. News Corp., Fox's parent, hopes to capitalize on the lucrative family film business and plug a hole in its own lineup by teaming with Walden Media, the producer of the 2005 blockbuster "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe."

"Things never happen the same way twice," Aslan the all powerful says in "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian," and although the lion king is referring to the ways of the world, he might be talking about this film as well. The sequel to 2005's hugely popular "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," which was the first of C.S. Lewis' seven-volume Narnia series to be filmed by Walt Disney Pictures and Walden Media, "Prince Caspian" is both like its predecessor and different from it. Though it retains a kid-friendly PG rating and is directed with a surer hand by the returning Andrew Adamson, this film is noticeably darker in tone, even beginning with the piercing scream of a woman in childbirth.

After coming up dry on such costly movie flops as "Around the World in 80 Days" and "Sahara," Hollywood's highest-rolling wildcatter is looking for his first gusher. And once again, Philip Anschutz is risking big.