Disney’s Narnia excites religious groups
Hollywood follows money, finds faith
OTTAWA — The upcoming release of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe is part of a quiet but significant revolution that has been shaking the United States for several years but is only beginning to touch Hollywood: a battle, perhaps as vital as the fight between the White Witch and the army of Aslan in the C.S. Lewis novel, between the sacred and the profane.
The profane is easy to see on almost any movie screen, if you are sensitive to it: many families feel they can barely dip into their popcorn before they are swamped in a sea of vulgarity and violent acts that have become a part of the wallpaper of popular culture.
The sacred is harder to find, but it’s getting easier. The rise of the religious right in America is partly due to what some see as a left- wing, urban, Godless, anti- Bible tsunami of inappropriate entertainment — “I’ve never come out of a movie and heard people complaining that the film would have been better if only a few F- words have been added,” says conservative critic Michael Medved — and they are beginning to fight against it.
One of the harshest observers of what it regards as “the continuous onslaught of exploding or naked body parts and foul language,” is the right-wing Dove Foundation, an American advocacy group that gives its seal of approval to “ decent” films. Dove does research that shows most people are bothered by sex,
violence and
profanity in film;
93 per cent of
respondents to
one of its surveys reported
they want to see
more wh o l e -
s o m e f a m i ly
entertainment.
S o D ove i s
quite excited
about the $ 150-
million US film version of Narnia. “There is a great buzz of anticipation,” it says.
Part of the reason Dove is optimistic is that the movie is being co-produced by the Walt Disney company and Walden Media, a company backed by a man Dove calls “Christian billionaire Philip Anschutz, a quiet, humble Denver businessman.” Anschutz is founder of Qwest Communications; among its holdings is Regal Entertainment, the largest chain of movie theatres in the U.S., which controls 20 per cent of the country’s screens. He says he wants to make movies that have a positive effect on people’s lives. Walden Media, which makes only G, PG or PG- 13 films, has produced such “ Doveapproved” films as Holes and Because of Winn Dixie.
The Narnia series of seven books — which have sold more than 100 million copies worldwide — are not explicitly religious, but have an allegorical message about the life of Christ, an aspect that is being both emphasized and deemphasized. Disney is promoting The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe as a fantasy set in an enchanted universe where “four siblings team with a magnificent lion and pals to dethrone a beautiful, but deadly witch.” The movie’s producer, Mark Johnson, says that while the movie isn’t like Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, “I think the sensation of seeing those movies will be akin to the sensation one will feel in seeing this movie.”
At the same time, a group called Catholic Outreach has initiated a “Narnia Outreach” website that offers resources to parishes and schools “who want to use the film as a faith-formation opportunity.” An “inspired-by” album featuring Christian artists has been released. Lon Allison, the director of the Billy Graham Centre at Wheaton College in Illinois, told the Observer newspaper in London, “We believe that God will speak the gospel of Jesus Christ through this film.”
This kind of marketing isn’t starting with Narnia. Disney marketed its golf film The Greatest Game Ever Played to Christian churches, even though its message was family-based rather than religious. Paul Reiser promoted his fatherandfilm The Thing About My Folks by screening it at churches and synagogues. Other studios are also marketing family movies in similar ways.
Sometimes the two markets clash. In Florida, an advocacy group called Americans United for Separation of Church and State has asked Gov. Jeb Bush to stop a state reading contest that promotes Narnia.
Narnia opens this Friday and if it is successful, there are six other Narnia books that could be adapted for movies (work has already begun on the script for Prince Caspian.) The signs of a public hunger for religious-based material is strong.
Mel Gibson’s $ 600- million blockbuster The Passion of the Christ changed forever the idea that the church has no place on the movie screens of the nation.
Two movies based on the Left Behind series of novels have brought in $100 million in DVD sales. Hollywood may have found faith at last, just by following the money. CanWest News Service