The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a beloved children’s book about four British schoolchildren who pass through a wardrobe into a magic land where a witch has made it always winter and never Christmas. There they meet Aslan, the lion of the title, who offers his own life to the witch to atone for the treachery of one of the siblings.
On Dec. 9, a $150 million movie version will open nationwide, reigniting an old debate: Is the world created by British author C.S. Lewis a rip-roaring piece of fantasy — or a fairy tale suffused with Christian imagery?
The answer is both, and that raises a related question: Can Disney succeed by selling the movie on two tracks — as a sort of cross between The Lord of the Rings andThe Passion of the Christ? If so, TheChronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe figures to be a holiday blockbuster.
Walden Media made the movie, and Disney came in as a partner to distribute and sell it. A multitiered marketing campaign targets, among others, fantasy fans and churchgoers, groups not usually known for being on the same cultural wavelength.
“My reading of the situation is Disney came to realize, ‘Goodness, we have a two-fer here,’ ” says Alan Jacobs, a professor of English at Wheaton (Ill.) College.
“We can draw in those millions of people who want heroic fantasy, but then we can also tap into those thousands of churches that can sell out theaters.”
The cycle of seven Narnia books is approaching 100 million in sales since Wardrobe was published in 1950.
The trick for the movie will be pleasing old fans, many of whom are drawn to the Christian imagery, while attracting new ones, some of whom could resent it.
“I don’t want to sound greedy or sound like a producer saying, ‘We’re for everybody,’ ” producer Mark Johnson says. “But we are. That’s the genius of C.S. Lewis: The story works on so many levels.”
Lewis was an Oxford professor and prolific author best known in his lifetime for his literate defenses of Christian doctrine.
But it is his Narnia novels that have earned him his most lasting fame — and the cinematic promise of as many as six sequels if Wardrobe is a hit.
The book has long charmed children of any or no religion. The movie is, in many ways, faithful to the book — and faithful to the faithful — without sounding the horn of religious orthodoxy.
Johnson says you will find Christian symbolism in the movie only if you found it in the book. That’s fair enough, though you will find it if you look closely — or are told to.
Aslan, a sort of Lion King of Kings, is not a mere Christ figure. He is Christ. Lewis said so, calling Aslan a “supposal” of what might have happened if the Lion of Judah had come to another world.
Just don’t tell the kids, Lewis scholars say.
The book is no staid Sunday school lesson: It is a rousing adventure tale that stands on its own, with echoes of larger themes that reverberate in young minds even when children are unsure of the source of the echoes.
[Read the rest at USAToday.com]
Thanks to Brett for the heads up!