Disney taps Narnia niche markets

LOS ANGELES - Whether or not Walt Disney scores a major box office success with its new film "The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," its unusual marketing effort has already proven groundbreaking.

After all, it is not every day that a major studio tries to combine the brassy marketing behind the likes of "Lord of the Rings" with the quiet grassroots appeal that made "The Passion of the Christ" into the only Aramaic-language blockbuster.

"Narnia," which cost over US$250 million to make and promote, opens on Friday behind a marketing campaign designed to woo almost every possible group to the film version of C.S. Lewis' children's books which have sold some 100 million copies.

Disney is betting this core constituency of fans will see the film and tell their friends about it.

It is also betting that Christians will warm to the movie because of its allegorical redemptive message and that it can lure schoolchildren, Hispanic families and relatives of US soldiers fighting in Iraq - groups it believes will respond to the themes of courage, family, loyalty and right-versus-wrong.

"I think they are looking at two films, 'The Lord of the Rings' and 'The Passion of the Christ,' which targeted totally different crowds and looking for a way to hit both of those markets," said Brent Plate, assistant professor of religion at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas.

"They're trying something fairly new in dual-marketing technique," Plate said.

Disney received widespread media attention for hiring Motive Marketing, the same firm used by actor-director Gibson to promote "Passion" to churches. That film was embraced by Christians around the world and went on to gross US$612 million last year.

While Disney says it conducted a push among churches to point out biblical themes in the Narnia books, it says it also went after other potential fans just as aggressively.

"We recognized there were tens of millions of fans of the book ... and therefore we followed a strategy to make a movie that would be true to the book," said Dennis Rice, senior vice president of publicity for Disney Studios.

The company also reached out to the Hispanic community in an unprecedented way to tout the film's core values of family, loyalty and good-versus-evil.

"We now know that the Hispanic community makes up as much as 40 per cent of the moviegoing public in certain markets," Rice said. "They are very family-oriented and have more children per capita, and they love Disney."

The film's World War Two setting and portrayal of a family enmeshed in war were pitched to military families who have watched sons, daughters, husbands and wives go to war in Iraq.

The company said its most extensive effort was aimed at schools. Last spring, Disney sent out 300,000 curriculum guides to try to convince teachers to include "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" in lesson plans.

An initiative with the state of Florida to get children to read the book ran into controversy when critics protested that the program, supported by Gov. Jeb Bush, violated separation of church and state mandates.

Disney marketers also trolled for fans of a different stripe - young men and fantasy fans who helped propel the "Lord of the Rings" films to US$2.9 billion at the box office.

- REUTERS