Yes, But Does Narnia Have Legs?
Coming Soon reports on The Lion, the Witch and the Box Office:
Walt Disney Pictures' The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe exceeded expectations, opening to an impressive $67.1 million. Director Andrew Adamson's adaptation of the C.S. Lewis novel marks the second-biggest opening ever for a film in December, surpassing The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers ($62 million) and trailing only The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King ($72.6 million). It is also the 23rd best opening of all-time domestically and the third biggest debut of 2005 so far. The fantasy-adventure, budgeted at about $180 million, opened in 3,616 theaters and averaged $18,546 per location.
But will it last? Will people see it more than once in the theatre? That's the test of a good adventure movie. Harry Potter kept its numbers high three weeks running, and remained at number one. Narnia's going to get buried by King Kong, but how will it compare to other films?
Is this important? Heck, yeah. It will determine just how much Disney invests in Prince Caspian and the rest of the series.
Who should host the Oscars?
Chris Rock won't be invited back.
Please, let us be spared another round with Whoopi Goldberg.
Crystal's time is done. When was the last time he turned in a worthwhile performance in a film? And Steve Martin, as much as I love him, is clearly tired of investing in worthwhile comedy, wasting his skills on Cheaper by the Dozen 2.
My dream would be Eddie Izzard, but too few people know who he is.
John Stewart? Steven Colbert? That would be a hoot, but they really aren't Hollywood personalities.
My vote? Co-hosts Will Ferell and Jack Black.
Chattaway & Greydanus weigh in on Narnia. And I get on the radio in SC.
UPDATE: Welcome to the Narnia Smackdown, a post that has provoked some of the most interesting comment-exchanges in this blog's little history.
It begins with the soon-to-be-father of twins, Peter T. Chattway, and his review of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, here.
Then, it continues as Steven D. Greydanus (gotta love those middle initials! Golly, I need one!) turns in what he calls "the most blistering B-plus review ever."
My review of the film was first published at Christianity Today Movies, then published in an expanded version at Looking Closer, and then I wrote yet another review of the film for Seattle Pacific's Response magazine, along with an interview with Walden Media President Micheal Flaherty.
This has led to some spirited responses, involving Barbara Nicolosi of Act One: Writing for Hollywood and blogger; the eloquent Steven D. Greydanus of Decent Films; and Peter T. Chattaway of Christianity Today Movies, Canadian Christianity, and FilmChat.
*****
Meanwhile, if you live in Columbia, South Carolina, I hope you tuned in to Steve Sunshine on WHMK this morning to hear my radio interview about the film. You had the rare pleasure of hearing me speak with laryngitis. All I need is the southern accent, and I could quit my job and hit the road as a Johnny Cash inpersonator! I hear I sound much sexier with laryngitis, a fact that makes me first in line for every cold-virus that comes through town...
And so the next Mel Gibson debacle begins...
The Washington Post is already stoking the fires of controversy over Mel Gibson's next project, which hasn't even started filming yet.
Gibson, whose film "The Passion of the Christ" was seen by some critics as anti-Semitic and whose father is on record as doubting the Holocaust, may not take an executive producer credit on "Flory." But his attachment to the project has attracted the attention of some Jewish groups.
Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles said the project would give "Gibson a chance to redeem himself from the controversy over 'The Passion of the Christ,' which did not portray Jews fairly."
Hier said the project would also "provide a first-class education for his father, who is a Holocaust denier."
Gibson's ultraconservative Catholic father, Hutton Gibson, is on record as doubting the Holocaust, describing it last year as "maybe not all fiction, but most of it is."
One mean review!
I don't think Polly liked Aslan.
But what's this? After a long, dark night of the soul and women's weeping, the lion is suddenly alive again. Why? How?, my children used to ask. Well, it is hard to say why. It does not make any more sense in CS Lewis's tale than in the gospels. Ah, Aslan explains, it is the "deep magic", where pure sacrifice alone vanquishes death.
Of all the elements of Christianity, the most repugnant is the notion of the Christ who took our sins upon himself and sacrificed his body in agony to save our souls. Did we ask him to? Poor child Edmund, to blame for everything, must bear the full weight of a guilt only Christians know how to inflict, with a twisted knife to the heart. Every one of those thorns, the nuns used to tell my mother, is hammered into Jesus's holy head every day that you don't eat your greens or say your prayers when you are told. So the resurrected Aslan gives Edmund a long, life-changing talking-to high up on the rocks out of our earshot. When the poor boy comes back down with the sacred lion's breath upon him he is transformed unrecognisably into a Stepford brother, well and truly purged.
What a day! My Narnia review is up! New column begins! And a book deal!
Ladies and gentlemen... it's Narnia Day at Looking Closer!
My review of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe!
My interview with Micheal Flaherty, president of Walden Media!
The debut of my new monthly column, Response OnScreen!
PLUS:
Rev. Earl Palmer on the importance of Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe!
My friend, colleague, and fellow novelist Clint Kelly on C.S. Lewis and the letters he still receives from children! And don't miss "What if I love Aslan more than Jesus?"
A photo tour of C.S. Lewis's home, led by my friend Kim Gilnett! Plus, a story on its restoration!
Lots more in the new issue of Response!
And finally...
Forgive me for being absent for a while there, but I've been awfully sick. I think I finally crashed and burned after getting too busy with Narnia and another interesting development...
THROUGH A SCREEN DARKLY ... my first book about searching for truth, beauty, and meaning at the movies. A publisher has stepped forward, and we hope to get the book out in late 2006! Stay tuned... much more to come.
The Chronicle of Higher Education knocks down Phillip Pullman's slanderous protests against C.S. Lewis and Narnia
In articles, interviews, and speeches, Pullman has described The Chronicles not just as "propaganda in the cause of the religion [Lewis] believed in," but also as guilty of advancing views such as, "Death is better than life; boys are better than girls; light-colored people are better than dark-colored people; and so on." And those are just Pullman's G-rated charges. He also has blasted The Chronicles in public forums as "one of the most ugly and poisonous things I've ever read," "propaganda in the service of a life-hating ideology," "blatantly racist," "monumentally disparaging of girls and women," and marked by a "sadomasochistic relish for violence."
If Pullman is right, not only should mainstream moviegoers stay away from Lion, so should evangelical Christians. "The highest virtue, we have on the authority of the New Testament itself," the avowedly atheistic Pullman said in a recent interview about the movie, "is love, and yet you find not a trace of that in the books."
But is Pullman right?
"It's faithful to the book. But we've published our own alternative version of the novel, to reflect all of our changes."
Peter T. Chattaway beats me to the punch:
Last night, I went to the local Chapters and discovered that a whole slew of movie tie-in books have already been released -- including a children's novelization of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe which includes descriptions of scenes from the film that are not in C.S. Lewis's original book. As my friend and colleague Steven D. Greydanus has pointed out, it kind of makes you wonder why there has been so much talk about the movie being so "faithful" to Lewis's book; and it also makes you wonder why Walden Media, a firm that specializes in films based on books with "educational" value, is authorizing dumbed-down versions of Lewis's original story that will essentially be competing with it for the book-buyer's dollars. I mean, really, did anyone publish novelizations of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings movies?
What he said.
I'm bound to refrain from reviewing Wardrobe until Thursday. But I will share with you this lingering question: Why was I told, again and again, by people involved with the movie that "The movie is the book!"?? Some people are going to decide that these were flat-out lies. Others will quote Obi-Wan and say that the filmmakers were telling the truth "from a certain point of view."
The film is faithful to the basic events and themes of Lewis's book. But, for better or worse, get ready for some surprising excisions. And for Embellishments of Unusual Size. (Yep, that's right. EOUSes.)
Elsewhere, here's a good Douglas Gresham quote from The New York Daily News' article about the film:
"Jack himself said, 'We do not need more people writing Christian books, we need more Christians writing good books.' I don't think we need more people making Christian movies, I think we need more Christians making good movies."
Half Shot 3 winner: Mike Harris Stone!
Mike Harris Stone somehow gathered from a piece of this photo (Was the telephone the big clue?) that it was from Paris, Texas.
Here's the whole photo:
Mike Harris Stone wins the recognition due to the king of the world!
Specials: Hand Puppet Theater does "Serenity"
Friday specials:
GLOBAL WARMINGS
Ladies and gentlemen, please stand for the long-awaited return of the President of the United States... Will Ferrell.
MAL... THE PUPPET
Maybe this version will finally win Serenity the respect it deserves.
LARK NEWS STRIKES AGAIN
Pastor wins "Most Relevant" award.