Michael Apted talks about Dawn Treader Challenges and Plans

There was also a screening in L.A. this week, of 30 minutes of the film, and MovieWeb managed to capture something that the other articles had, but more of it: director Michael Apted’s words about the film and the challenges that he faced in bringing the story to the big screen. This should help give you some insight into the challenges that are faced when translating from book to screen.

Apted spoke about making the film. “It’s a beautiful book and I have been asked often if I read the book while I was growing up to which I say, no … the books weren’t written yet when I was growing up,” the director laughed. “They are typically books that you can read to your children every night, one chapter a night. It doesn’t quite have that dramatic thrust to it that it needs for a film and it took us a long time to really nail that. The tone of the book is quite different than the one before it, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. The pressure was on us to go back to Narnia, the color of it all, the magic of it all and in a sense recreate what Andrew (Adamson) had done with the first one so we had to go back and sort of revise that,” he explained.

“From a directing point of view the story is rather difficult to keep consistent,” Apted continued. “These are real children, on a real adventure and often in real danger with a real evolution in the end. But the places they go and the people they meet are incredibly fantastic, so you have to keep a level of realism to it and engage the audience.”

The director spoke further about the difficulty of making this sequel. “Another of the big challenges was to really honor the book because the book has a spiritual quality to it that I feel is important. Hopefully it is a spiritual thing that is accessible to everyone. It’s about another world and I think in this day and age it is not a bad message to be giving to people who are growing up. The growing up part of it is very important for me because I think it is a universal story,” he explained. “It’s a story that has English roots but its relatable to every child on the planet because its about growing up, finding yourself, coming to terms with yourself and knowing what your values are, that is really the heart of this film. Those were the two things really that we had to be careful of and I had to be very watchful of honoring the book.”

Apted, who is known more as an “actors director” and for making smaller dramatic films also discussed the personal challenges for him as a director making this movie. “We shot the film in Australia and London and for me it was a monumental challenge because I had never done anything like this. I did a “Bond” film but this was much more complicated than that and I think if I hadn’t done the “Bond” film I couldn’t have done this,” the director admitted.

MovieWeb commented:

The footage that we were shown, while not in 3D and with some final effects work still needed before its release was none the less very impressive and showed many signs of hope for the struggling franchise.

In fact, if the final product is anything like what we saw, fans of the first film as well as the series of books will be delighted to know that the magic that made the original movie so popular is back intact in this one.

They dare you to keep a dry eye at the emotional impact of one particular relationship in the film.