Tag: movies

Chronicles of Narnia update: Dawn Treader movie heading into troubled waters

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It appears that the long-delayed movie version of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the third installment of The Chronicles of Narnia series, has finally wrapped in Australia. And the word is that Michael Apted, who some had feared as a poor choice to direct the feature, has done nothing to prove his critics wrong. Julia Duin, writing recently in the Washington Times, says Apted seems intent on backing off the Christian theme in the book:

“Voyage” director Michael Apted, who has admitted to excising a lot of the religious connotations out of his 2007 film “Amazing Grace,” sounds double-minded.

The Narnia films, he told Rhema FM, a New Zealand Christian radio station, “present a challenge, for me to put the material out there in an evenhanded and interesting way; and not to be, in a sense, narrow-minded about it, either narrow-minded in a faith way or narrow-minded in an agnostic way. I have to open my heart to what the stories are about.”

“Narrow-minded in a faith way”? That’s going to rev up Christians to see this movie.

This truly is disappointing since many fans of C.S. Lewis’ work had been eagerly waiting to see how these literary treasures would be made into movies. When Disney bailed on the series in Decenber 2008 after The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and Prince Caspian (which already started to drift from the series’ Christian theme), there was much doubt as to whether the series would continue. Fox picked up the series and Dawn Treader, which was scheduled for a May 2009 release, was pushed back to May 2010. Now, Druin reports, the movie will be released in December. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s not that you couldn’t enjoy the movie, it’s just that knowing what the books are like and then seeing the story altered in ways that I’m sure Lewis would be displeased with would be a huge letdown.

As before, my advice would be to find the books. Read them, both for your own sake and your children’s. See exactly what Apted thinks is so “narrow-minded.”

HT: Trevin Wax

Memorial Day movies: ‘Taking Chance’ is a way to understand those who serve

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Since today is Memorial Day, here is a movie you should consider seeing if you can find it. My brother, serving honorably in Iraq, recommended it and I’ll take his word on it. It’s called “Taking Chance” and stars Kevin Bacon. This is what reviewer Robert Davis said about the movie, which was nominated for the Jury Prize at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival:

Taking Chance is a very simple film about Lt. Col. Michael Strobl (Kevin Bacon) who is escorting the body of a fallen PFC named Chance Phelps to his family. In under ninety minutes, the film bears witness to the respectful procedures that the USMC follows in such situations and to the reactions of ordinary Americans who Strobl meets on this particular journey. He doesn’t know the Private, and we learn only a few details about Strobl himself, but I found the film to be one of the most moving experiences I’ve had in a theater, almost indescribably so. Bacon’s solidity and restraint bind the minimal plot together, as do the tasteful decisions made by filmmaker Ross Katz, a producer-turned-director (he produced Lost in Translation and In the Bedroom) who tells the story with remarkable efficiency, never lingering past a scene’s essential moment, never overplaying the emotion. It’s the best feature film about America’s involvement in Iraq that I’ve seen. I’m not a military guy, and I’ve never had much interest in the Marines, but after the screening I needed some time to walk around.

The Truth About ‘Angels and Demons’

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Westminster Theological Seminary has put together a comprehensive Web site in response to the movie based on Dan Brown’s book “Angels and Demons.” Some of the questions from “Angels and Demons” it addresses are:

Other topics addressed on the site include Church &  Bio-Ethics, Facts About Antimatter, Illuminati Ambigrams, Hidden Archives, The God Particle, CERN & Religion, Popular Questions and an Angels and Demons Quiz. All in all, it’s a great site for those who have questions about Christianity raised by the movie.

News about The Hobbit movies

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The latest news surrounding “The Hobbit” movies, due out in December 2011 and 2012, comes recently from The Empire. The question that had been floating around the world of Tolkein fans was that the first movie would be “The Hobbit” and the second would cover the span between “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings.” Producer Peter Jackson and director Guillermo Del Torro clear that up:

“We’ve decided to have The Hobbit span the two movies, including the White Council and the comings and goings of Gandalf to Dol Guldur,” says Del Toro. “We decided it would be a mistake to try to cram everything into one movie,” adds Jackson. “The essential brief was to do The Hobbit, and it allows us to make The Hobbit in a little more style, if you like, of the [LOTR] trilogy.”

HT: Tim Challies

Movie thoughts: Can Narnia be fixed?

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It took a month, but the Narnia movies will continue under a new distributor.:

Twentieth Century Fox has agreed to co-finance the third movie in the “Chronicles of Narnia” series, pending approval of the final script and shooting budget. If all goes as planned, Fox and Walden Media, which controls the movie rights to C.S. Lewis’ classic children’s books, hope to be begin production on “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” by late summer so it will be ready for holiday 2010 release.

First, however, Fox and Walden have to hire a screenwriter to do another pass on the script that was last rewritten by Richard LaGravenese, whose credits include “Freedom Writers” and “The Horse Whisperer.” The movie companies are looking to make the film for about $140 million. Michael Apted, who made “Amazing Grace” and the 1999 Bond flick “The World Is Not Enough,” is on board to direct.

Producer/author Mark Joseph has some ideas about how the series can be fixed. One of those is finding a new director since he is not thrilled about the choice of Apted to replace Andrew Adamson:

Some saw hope when a new director signed on to direct the third installment, but this choice only compounded the problem. As head of the Directors Guild, he had proudly led the charge in crushing traditionalist groups who had invented devices that allowed desperate red-state films fans to clean up their favorite movies, then cemented his status as being out of touch with the types of fans who made up Narnia’s base when he seemed to brag to reporters about gutting the biopic of the devoutly religious British lawmaker William Wilberforce of its religion:

“Then this script arrived, which was pretty much a straight biopic of Wilberforce – which probably veered more into his Christian side than it did the political side,” he had said. “So I thought if I could persuade them to put the politics right more in the front of it – to make that the engine of the story, and certainly deal with his belief system and his religion and all that – then this might be something that would really be good for me to do it. So I did manage to persuade that, on all sorts of levels because I said it makes the character more interesting, because his political skills and political achievements are enormous, and we would move away from the idea of kind of making him an artifact, a kind of saint-like figure; it would give him real personality, real dimension.”

Joseph goes on to say that Apted’s reluctance to embrace the Christianity of the Narnia stories would make him a poor choice and lists  10 ways that the Narnia films can be saved. As I mentioned in a comment thread, you would enjoy the movies, but I am so thankful for the books. You would do well for your children and yourself to read them. They are a treasure.

Update on next Chronicles of Narnia movie

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From the L.A. Times blog, which gives a lot of the back story on why Disney bailed on the Narnia movies. It looks like the Chronicles will continue at some point on the big screen:

Walden [Media] is moving ahead with plans to make a third book in the series, “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader,” which will have a new director, Michael Apted, at the helm but much of the cast, including Ben Barnes (Prince Caspian), from the previous films. The book is said to be far more commercial than the last installment, being more of a classic boy’s seagoing adventure story, complete with fantastic sights, dragons, wizards and sea serpents, not to mention Eustace Scrubb, who I hear on good authority is one of the most inspired rotten kids in English literature. The real fascinating question is: Who will release it? Walden could announce a new deal as early as later this week.

It doesn’t have a lack of suitors. The studio with the inside track is 20th Century Fox, which has first dibs on the project, since it already markets and distributes Walden projects under its Fox-Walden banner. Fox has plenty of interest, having seriously considered acquiring the movie rights to the C.S. Lewis books even before Walden originally landed the franchise. Fox has a strong marketing department, with lot of success with family entertainment–the studio’s biggest hits last year were both family films, “Horton Hears a Who” and the year-ending “Marley & Me.”

But Fox is famous for driving hard bargains and exercising fiscal discipline, so don’t expect to see “Dawn Treader” costing anywhere near $225 million. Walden has been aiming to bring the new film in at around $140 million, which would be a far more enticing price tag for a 50/50 studio partner. If Fox passes, both Sony and Warners have expressed strong interest in the project. It would be a good fit for either studio, giving Sony something it hasn’t had in recent years–a fantasy-oriented family franchise, while it could provide Warners with a ready-made family-oriented franchise to replace the soon-to-be completed “Harry Potter” series. Whatever happens, it seems likely that “Narnia” fans will soon have another chance to visit the enchanted world of Narnia and other distant lands.

HT: Tim Challies