Writer-producer-director David Goyer (Batman Begins) told SCI FI Wire that he and Harry Potter producer David Heyman are co-producing a big-screen version of the James A. Owen fantasy novel Here, There Be Dragons, based on the real and fantasy lives of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams. The book is the first volume in Owen’s The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica franchise, and Goyer revealed that Owen is currently writing his own adaptation of the tale, hinting that he might direct the ensuing film if the timing works out.
“That will probably be a long, lengthy process,” Goyer said in an interview while promoting his upcoming film, The Invisible, which he directed. “I’ll be producing it for sure, and we’ll see [what else]. You just never know. These things take so long to get going, and you never know what your schedule’s going to be like at the time they come to fruition.”
Here, There Be Dragons brings together three strangers—John, Jack and Charles—in London during World War I, where they become entrusted with the Imaginarium Geographica, an atlas of all the lands that have ever existed in myth, legend, fable and fairy tale. They end up traveling to the Archipelago of Dreams, fighting the dark forces that threaten two worlds. It is later revealed that the three are future fantasy authors Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings), Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia) and Williams, who met in real life at Oxford and enjoyed a competitive friendship.
“I’m a fan of what I guess I would term ‘meta-fiction,’ and James just came up with this really wonderful device that [brings together] all these characters, real-life people [like] Tolkien and C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams,” Goyer said. “At one point in time they all did really know each other, so he backdated that relationship between them and posited that they shared some real-life adventures in another land that became the source material for all their subsequent fantasy writings. The land that this takes place in is the land that gave birth to Narnia and Middle-earth, etc., etc. So it’s just a wonderful concept.” —Ian Spelling