Co-CEO Granat departing in Walden Media shake-up

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. Granat, who was forced to share his CEO title with Bostick, was basically relegated to overseeing Walden’s Chronicles of Narnia franchise.

As of Dec. 1, Granat will relinquish his executive duties at Walden but will be the company’s creative consultant on the third film in the Narnia series, “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.” Production has not yet been green-lighted but could be within days if the final script and budget are approved by Walden and its partner on the franchise, Walt Disney Studios.

David Weil, chief executive of Anschutz Film Group, said the budget had to come in “considerably less than $200 million” in order to get the go-ahead for production in the first quarter of next year.

The first movie based on C.S. Lewis’ classic children’s books, “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” in 2005, was a blockbuster that grossed $745 million worldwide. But its sequel, “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian,” which cost more than $200 million, was a big disappointment. It generated $419 million in worldwide ticket sales, but is still is in the red, according to a person familiar with the situation. The DVD is to be released next month.

Walden has a mixed record at the box office, with more misses than hits. The company had a surprise hit this summer with the 3-D sci-fi “Journey to the Center of the Earth,” which Warner Bros. released. But its most recent offering, “City of Ember,” distributed by 20th Century Fox, went down in flames.

Last month, Walden downsized Fox Walden, its 2-year-old marketing partnership with Fox, after a series of flops that included “The Seeker” and “Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium.” Fifteen executives at Fox Walden were let go, and of that group three moved to Walden and a few went to Fox.

Weil said that with Granat’s departure, Walden -- which has about 57 employees -- had “no additional restructuring plans as of now.”

Granat co-founded Walden with Michael Flaherty in 2000 after previously working at Dimension Films. Anschutz bought a majority interest in the company in 2001.

In a phone interview, Granat said that after he, Anschutz and Weil tried “different configurations of how things might work, at the end of the day Michael [Bostick] was building out his slate and it was time to move on.”

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claudia.eller@latimes.com