The first trailer for The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader has been released online by 20th Century Fox on the film’s official website.

Voyage of the Dawn Treader is the third chapter in the franchise, and the first since Fox took over. In December of 2008, we found out that The Walt Disney Company had decided not to continue backing the films after the sequel, Prince Caspian, had a major drop at the box office. A month later it was revealed that Fox would be picking it up and continuing on in hopes that this new movie might regain the popularity of the first.

Continue on over to the other side to check out the first trailer for Voyage of the Dawn Treader!

New Line Cinema recently heard a pitch from Darren Lemke that presented a concept for a live-action re-imagining of beloved fairy tale The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. The pitch hit its mark solid and New Line acquired the idea and is moving forward with it. This new vision is expected to be of the action/adventure/fantasy variety and be presented in the same style as movies like The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

The original Nutcracker tale was written in 1816 by E.T.A. Hoffmann and centers around a 12-year-old girl named Marie and her 8-year-old brother, Fritz, as they eagerly await the year’s Christmas gift from their clockmaker/inventor father. He presents them with a specially crafted castle with mechanical people moving around it as if always tending to the day’s chores. Marie notices a Nutcracker and asks her father about it, who offers her the responsibility of caring for the doll. Later that night, Marie discovers that there is much more to the Nutcracker as he and many other dolls come to life to do battle with the mice, who are lead by the seven-headed Mouse King.

Back in December, it was reported that the Walt Disney Company had decided to step away from the Chronicles of Narnia franchise that they had been co-producing with Walden Media (Read: Disney Breaks Up With “˜Narnia’ Franchise). This was partly surprising, but at the same time it really wasn’t. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe did very well, costing $180 Million and bringing back almost $750 Million worldwide, but The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian jumped up to a $220 Million budget and only made $420 Million worldwide. There were still more books in the series expected to become movies, but with such a severe drop-off, the risk became too great…for Disney at least.

Within the same month that Disney decided to drop the franchise, Fox decided they wanted to jump into the pool with Walden in order to make The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which was already in pre-production (Read: Fox Decides To Pick Up “˜Narnia’ Franchise Afterall).

Now that we’re all caught up with the drama that has unfolded since the last movie was released, we now have our first official images from Voyage of the Dawn Treader via its Facebook page. This seems fast and unexpected all things considered, but as said, they were in pre-production, so here we are!

Click on over to check out these new images.

The Gold Box spotlight deal of the day over at Amazon is The Chronicles of Narnia Blu-ray Bundle for $29.99 (down 58% from $70.98).

This bundle, being sold exclusively through Amazon, contains the Blu-ray editions of Disney’s The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian.

Based on the books by C.S. Lewis, the Narnia movies are fantasy adventures that follow the four Pevensie children to the magical world of Narnia. In 2005’s The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, the inhabitants of Narnia — mythical creatures and animals that can speak — live under the tyrannical rule of the evil White Witch, who keeps the land in a perpetual state of winter. The coming of the children prompts the return of Aslan the Lion, which threatens the Witch’s reign. In Prince Caspian, it’s been a year since the children returned home to England, but it’s 1,300 years later in Narnia, where the corrupt King Miraz has usurped the throne from its rightful heir, Prince Caspian. In this darker sequel, the children return to Narnia to find it vastly different from the place they remember.

After Disney decided to stop co-financing the franchise with Walden Media, it looked like The Chronicles of Narnia was in some big trouble after only two movies. Instead, like Superman appearing from the sky, 20th Century Fox has shown up to save the day, reaching a preliminary agreement to co-finance at least the third movie, The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader with Walden.

This isn’t very much of a surprise as, when it was announced that Disney was disowning the franchise, all signs pointed toward Fox (Read: Disney Breaks Up With ‘Narnia’ Franchise), who had done plenty of work with Walden before. Fox also was trying to obtain the rights to the books before Walden won them, so they obviously didn’t need too much motivation.