At Comic-Con this year, the Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) announced its commitment to make all seven of the Chronicles of Narnia books into feature films, releasing one a year starting in May '08 with Prince Caspian. This decision follows the success of the adaptation of the first book -- The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe -- which grossed almost $300 million.

This decision is not surprising, following the conclusion of Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, which has no immediate plans to continue. Disney is predictably looking for its next goldmine franchise, and what better to use than a seven book series which already had a successful start?

The only question is whether the quality of production will suffer in the sequels from such an ambitious filming schedule, and after Disney pulled off the Pirates trilogy with such dazzling effects, I doubt that will be a concern -- although the quality of the Pirates scripts did fade down the stretch. At least with these movies, the writers will have a classic source to guide them.