“The Lion was pacing to and fro about that empty land and singing his new song. It was softer and more lifting than the song by which he had called up the stars and the sun; a gentle rippling music. And as he walked and sang, the valley grew green with grass.”
–C.S. Lewis
The real adventure in C.S. Lewis’ “The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe,” begins with the creation of Narnia. So, it is only natural that our adventure begins with Screenwriters Christopher Markus and Steven McFeely (The Life and Death of Peter Sellers; The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe ‘05). Riding on the comet-tails of HBO’s acclaimed Sellers bio-pic, the two celluloid rogues picked up the coveted adaptation of the first cinematic installment of the Narnia series. And, no, you don’t need a wardrobe or a glowing ring to get there. Narnia will be coming to a theater near you in December 2005.
Last October, during the Austin Film Festival, I sat in the upstairs lounge of the Paramount theater with the Screenwriting-Duo, sipped Dasani, talked about their experience adapting The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, making fantasy movies in New Zealand, and why we should always listen to Susan.
RECHARGE: I see that you have adapted “The Chronicles of Narnia.” I was kind of excited when I saw that.
McFeely: We were excited too.
Markus: It’s like a little chunk of my childhood has come and appeared in my life.
RECHARGE: All the fantasy movies seem be filming in New Zealand.
McFeely: They have lots of strangely-shaped people there that don’t need a lot of make-up. There’s like midgets and really tall people.
Markus: Expect it Christmas 2005.
McFeely: And an exhaustive amount of promotion. Every Happy Meal in town.
RECHARGE: That’s good for you guys. You’re like :”Muhahahhahhahaa!” You guys are set for the next fifteen years.
Markus: Yeah, exactly.
McFeely: A movie every December, that’s all we ask.
RECHARGE: So are they going to make a trilogy? Is that their plan?
Markus: Well, there are seven books, so we’ll see.
McFeely: They get stranger as they go along too.
Markus: The characters change, so the cast changes. So, you wouldn’t be required to have the same kids the whole time.
RECHARGE: So, they don’t have any plans for a second or third?
Markus: If the first one hits, they make as many as they think is cool.
McFeely: They are very open-minded about it. They have the rights to all of them.
RECHARGE: What was it like to adapt The Chronicles of Narnia?
McFeely: It was good. I mean that it’s weird in that you remember, if you read it as a kid, this huge epic, you know. All this stuff happened. And then you go and you re-read to book and it’s not there. It’s like, “by the way there was this huge battle with many creatures, but we are going to stay with Susie and Lucy talking to the lion.” So, we have to put in what happens when (the book says) “and they had many adventures as they walked across Narnia.” Well, crap. That’s about half the movie, C.S.
Markus: There was a lot of facilitating by the director, Andy (Andrew) Adamson who did Shrek and Shrek 2. And this is his first live-action deal and he’s great. He’s co-writing it. So, the process is that we write a draft and then he goes, “I like that and that and not this other stuff,” and he sends it back. We were very impressed when we were down there (in New Zealand) just last week, because (Anderson) is very calm and very cool person with an army of people working for him. What we saw was part was part of the movie and it looks like how we thought it would, how we imagined it would. It was pretty cool.
McFeely: It’s that challenge of making a book that’s clearly (unstructured into a movie). And with this one, even more than the other (books), (Lewis) didn’t know that he was writing anymore of them. This was a book that was written, I think, as he went along. It doesn’t seem to be terribly plotted out for an eight-year old. And you’re like if this is going to hang together, these are going to have to be individual characters and (in the book) they’re basically four kids who are one character. “The four kids walk around.”
RECHARGE: So, you had to go back in an individualize all the characters and put a little more plot into the battles?
Markus: The battle was primarily Andrew. He knew what he wanted to do and he’s got pre-visual team that was like, “Okay, we are going to have all these various rocks, boulders, animals and things.”
McFeely: In a way, our job was to humanize everybody, including the creatures, to make it a legitimate movie rather than a puppet show.
Markus: Give the kids conflicts amongst themselves, so that they are not playing in Narnia. They are trying to resolve things that they brought with them.
RECHARGE: So, what are the most proud of in your script?
McFeely: Susan. I’m very fond of Susan.
Markus: We love Susan.
McFeely: She’s sort of the voice of the author.
RECHARGE: So, I guess, I’m going to be listening to whatever she says.
Markus: If Susan has a wise-ass remark, you know where that’s coming from…The whole thing is kind of like this big toy that got dropped into our laps. Our career pleases me to no end.
(Laughs) We don’t know what the hell we are doing.
McFeely: First we get this bio-pic and now we are doing this giant fantasy movie. It makes me happy.
Originally written by Shanon Ingles for the now defunct Recharge Magazine
