Dawn-Treading Where They Shouldn't?

Let’s just be clear. These Narnia movies aren’t supposed to be based on the books. They’re supposed to be based on the filmmakers’ *memories* of the books, which they might not have read since childhood. Because, you know, those memories will be so much better than the books. And who could expect a busy filmmaker to actually read the novel he’s adapting?

The best I can hope, I guess, is that they come up with a compelling script, as Cuaron did when he “adapted” Children of Men while disregarding the source material. But the first two efforts haven’t made me optimistic…

Here’s the update, via a link that Glenn McCarty sent in:

“Andrew Adamson, who wrote and directed the first two, is a producer on it with me and Michael Apted is directing,” said Johnson. “It’s a whole new franchise, I think it’s really benefiting from it. It’s a slightly different look. This one is different from the others, it’s in that [‘Seventh Voyage of Sinbad,’ old Harryhausen films] league and they go from island to island having adventures. I’m very excited about it.”

He added that “Adamson said something that was so smart early on. I had just re-read the book and he said, I don’t want to make a film based on ‘The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe,’ I want to make a movie based on my recollection of it. He took a 9-year-old boy’s imagination. He saw things that are not even in the book. Lewis left, sometimes major battles, on a single page, so Adamson just re-imagined it.”