Movies

Would you rather slice-and-dice an 870-page book beloved by millions or pump up a slim fantasy novel that's part of a series revered for its Christian allegories?

Your answer might well depend on your preference for the last Harry Potter film (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) or the newest Narnia movie (The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian).

On the picket line during the recent writers strike, the writers of those movies, Stephen McFeely and Michael Goldenberg, compared notes.

The winner?

"I'd say Michael had the harder job," says Mr. McFeely, who, with writing partner Christopher Markus, adapted the first two books in C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia series for the screen.

"With The Order of the Phoenix, you had a huge book that the fan base is intimately aware of," Mr. McFeely adds. "On The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and now Prince Caspian, you have older books that are loved by many, but are also unknown to the casual fan. A lot of people won't notice the liberties you've taken."

Released in December 2005, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe grossed $750 million worldwide, appealing to both Christian and secular audiences, to those intimate with lion Aslan's Christ-like sacrifice and to those who first became aware of the characters through a McDonald's Happy Meal tie-in.

With Prince Caspian, which arrives in theaters today, the same team (director Andrew Adamson, writers Mr. McFeely and Mr. Markus, Walden Media and the controlling interests of Lewis' estate) returns, again facing the challenge of making a popular fantasy-adventure from a book that's not particularly cinematic.

"Part of the reason the Narnia books are great for kids is that they leave a lot to the imagination," Mr. Markus says. "There's little seeds of big sequences in there that aren't fleshed out. As a kid, you can imagine it any way you want."

"We had to make a fixed version of it," Mr. McFeely says. "There's a kind of weight to that. You better imagine right. And you better imagine big."

If you've seen the commercial spots depicting huge battle scenes full of clanging swords and flying arrows, you know Caspian is big. The four Pevensie children return to Narnia, finding that 1,300 years have passed, and Aslan is absent. The Golden Age of Narnia is a myth, replaced by the iron rule of the human Telmarines. The land's magical creatures have gone into hiding.

Seeing the kingdom in ruin, the Pevensies join forces with young Prince Caspian to restore honor to the land. Caspian boils down to a battle between good and evil, a conventional war movie that's darker than the first film, though it lacks that movie's great villain.

The filmmakers debated whether they should make Caspian as the sequel to Lion or skip straight ahead to the third book, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, or even combine the two titles.

In the end, Caspian got the nod because it's the only other Narnia book to feature all four kids.

"The book may have its problems, but it also has some of the meatiest situations in it," Mr. Markus says. "My favorite sequence in the whole series is the kids coming back to find Cair Paravel in ruins."

"Basically, Caspian is a bridge novel," says Bowling Green State University professor Bruce Edwards, author of two books on the Narnia series. "It's the only deliberate sequel Lewis wrote, and it shows. It's designed to set up the rest of the Caspian trilogy. It has its own charms, but primarily, it's a boys' adventure novel with a little Hamlet, Three Musketeers and Ivanhoe thrown in for good measure."

Though Lewis downplayed explicit Christian allegories in Caspian, the book contains many spiritual elements (a fallen world, repentance, redemption) that resonate with readers.

"You hope the filmmakers capture what Lewis and the books are all about, but, based on the first movie, I don't expect them to," says Jeffrey Overstreet, author of Through a Screen Darkly, a look at how filmmakers (intentionally or not) reflect God through their work.

"Lewis and Tolkien both wrote about film adaptations, saying they could take license as long as they understood the core ideas,"

Mr. Overstreet adds, "I'm not convinced these guys do."

Mr. Adamson doesn't see the Narnia books as exclusively the property of Christians, saying that the myths Lewis created can be appreciated by people holding to a variety of beliefs. Producer Mark Johnson points out that the first film did huge business in India, China and Israel, cutting across all faiths.

"Americans have a big issue with religion," says Mr. Adamson, who was born in New Zealand and grew up in New Guinea, where his Christian parents did church work. "When I did interviews for the first movie, I got asked a lot about the allegory and how it related to Christianity in the United States. When I went to France, I got asked why Americans seem so concerned with the allegorical aspects.

"Obviously, religion and spirituality are big issues for anyone, but it's a personal issue," Mr. Adamson says. "The film is what it is, and people can take it however they want, really."

Disney has already commissioned a third Narnia movie, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Mr. Adamson will be moving on. Veteran filmmaker Michael Apted, known for his long-running Up! documentary series as well as Coal Miner's Daughter and Gorillas in the Mist, will direct, with Mr. Markus and Mr. McFeely again providing the screenplay.

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