From StarTribune.com:
If Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” awakened movie studios to a huge religious market, Disney’s “Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” is trying to tap it for all it’s worth — with a loud boost from the contemporary Christian music industry.
The strategy’s centerpiece is an “inspired-by”project (music about, but not in, the film) by EMI Christian Music Group. Released in early October, the “Narnia” album features contemporary Christian stars Jars of Clay, Jeremy Camp, Rebecca St. James and Steven Curtis Chapman, among others.
Denise George, the label’s marketing coordinator, says the idea of writing songs for a movie based on C.S. Lewis’ children’s classic captured the imagination of leading Christian musicians. While neither Lewis’ nor Disney’s “Narnia” is explicitly religious, Christians have long seen spiritual symbolism in the fantasy written by the Christian intellectual.
“We couldn’t get the artists to stop talking about it. Some turned in three or four songs for it,” George says. “I think Steven Curtis Chapman wrote five.”
Said Chapman: “What I’ve felt most inspired by is that, like Scripture, when you reach the end of the story, it’s a new beginning.”
Chapman focuses on the Lewis character Lucy, who at the novel’s end reflects on what’s happened to her and her siblings and declares that “every time she sees the first sign of spring, she’ll remember” all that’s happened on their journey.
Chapman’s aptly titled single, “Remembering You,” was shipped to both Christian and mainstream radio stations, as was Jars of Clay’s “Waiting for the World to Fall.”
That song, says Jars of Clay’s Matt Odmark, came from “the idea of being in a season and having a taste or intuition of the way things ought to be but aren’t.”
Singer/songwriter Nichole Nordeman’s “I Will Believe” focuses on the relationships among the children:
“One of us is big and brave/
One of us is tenderhearted/
One of us is tempting fate/
And the last but not least of us/
Has faith enough for each of us.”
“I love that Lewis didn’t dummy down to his audience, even though it was children,” Nordeman says, referring to Lewis’ seven-part Narnia series. “The books deal with life themes — failure and betrayal and camaraderie.”
The big question for Disney and Walden Media, which jointly created the movie scheduled for release Dec. 9, is this: Will the “Narnia” record drive Christian listeners to see the big-budget film?
Glen Lajeski, executive vice president of music creative/marketing for Disney’s Buena Vista division, says the film doesn’t lend itself to a typical soundtrack, but that music “helps broaden the audience and make people aware” of the movie. He cites recordings for films such as “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” and “Armageddon” that were “huge albums” that helped create buzz.
