New wine in classic wineskins

I understand Amazon wants to make more Lord of the Rings-based movies: prequels, I gather.

If they use existing characters, even peripheral, in a prequel, the story gets cramped. If they use new ones, it is more of a "in the universe of LoTR story," but likely without an equivalent story-teller behind them. I haven't heard any enthusiasm for working from the Silmarilion.

I suspect I won’t be investing in downloads.

But... Do you remember the stir when HarperCollins announced the plan to create new Narnia novels?

I’d pretty much forgotten about that—the article above, and several like it, date to 2001. I thought I’d heard a peep or two more recently than 16 years ago, but that may have been temporal foreshortening again.

They have coloring books, and shortened versions: told for younger audiences, and this: ”Based on characters originally featured in C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, The Giant Surprise is a brand new Narnia adventure story about Marshwiggles, giants, and mice for young children. Lally, a small wigglet, and her Uncle Puddleglum undertake a hair-raising rescue of their mice friends, before they become a giant’s supper.”

I wonder if HarperCollins quietly shelved the “new novels.”