Andrew Adamson, who directed the previous two Narnia films: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian prior to passing the reigns to Michael Apted for the third, has just written and will direct an adaptation of the Lloyd Jones novel, Mister Pip. It is a film that is set in a province of Papua New Guinea, where director Adamson spent much of his childhood.
Mister Pip will be principally set in the Papua New Guinea province of Bougainville during an ongoing war between soldiers and rebels over copper mining. It tells the story of a young girl who becomes transfixed by the Charles Dickens novel Great Expectations, which is being read at school by the only white man in the village.
“The overarching theme is the power of the human imagination to be used for both good and evil,” Scholes told ScreenDaily. “Meeting 37º South’s guests in an atmosphere in which they were not distracted by the need to sell films, was a great advantage.”
For director Andrew Adamson, growing up in Papua New Guinea gave him a personal connection to the location, which is likely a big part of why he took on that story for his next film project.