According to Yahoo News, Guillermo del Toro, director of such films as “Blade II” and “Mimic,” rejected directing the first Narnia movie “The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe” because, as a former Catholic, he could not see himself bringing Aslan to life.
The Mexican filmmaker is instead working on a movie called “Pan’s Labyrinth” which incorporates aspects from classic children’s literature, including Narnia. He is known for exploring mature themes in fantasy films and creating visually appealing films.
[He] was asked to direct “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” but he turned it down because, as a lapsed Catholic, he couldn’t see himself bringing Aslan the lion back to life.
Instead, he put his dark, fervid imagination to work on an original story, “Pan’s Labyrinth,” a bloody and harrowing fairy tale that incorporates elements from C.S. Lewis’ beloved Christian allegory and various other classics of children’s literature.
Set during the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, “Pan’s Labyrinth” shows why del Toro’s sensibility is somehow both perfectly suited and utterly alien to the gentle “Narnia.” He subjects his hero, an 11-year-old girl whose mother has married a captain in Gen. Francisco Franco’s army, to shocking violence and vexing moral quandaries.
“I’m not proselytizing anything about a lion resurrecting. I’m not trying to sell you into a point. I’m just doing a little parable about disobedience and choice,” del Toro said. “This is my version of that universe, not only `Narnia,’ but that universe of children’s literature.”
