Posted on 06/28/2005 11:19:26 AM PDT by JDBrown90
In a marriage of modern mythmakers, the Walt Disney Co. is marketing a film based on C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia. And in doing so, Disney will take a page from Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. Walt Disney Pictures/Walden Media Disney's adaptation of The Chronicles of Narnia follows the exploits of four children in World War II England who enter the imaginary world of Narnia through a magical wardrobe.
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, based on Lewis' novel for children and Christian allegory, will be released Dec. 9.
For Disney, the Christian marketing campaign represents a sharp break with corporate policy. Apart from Disney World's annual Nights of Joy concerts, the film is the company's first undertaking with the religious community. For some evangelical leaders, it represents the effective end of their Disney boycott.
The entertainment giant, which bills itself as a "Magic Kingdom," has carefully avoided religion for most of its history. Yet Disney has launched a 10-month campaign aimed at evangelical Christians to build support for Narnia, a $100 million, live-action and computer-generated animated feature it is co-producing with Walden Media.
Disney has hired several Christian marketing groups to handle the film, including Motive Marketing, which ran the historic, grass-roots efforts for The Passion. That film has grossed $611 million worldwide and is now in re-release. "From a marketing point of view, it could be a marriage made in heaven � if the movie is any good," says Adele Reinhartz, professor of religion at Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada.
Dr. Armand Nicholi, who for decades has taught a Harvard seminar on C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud, agrees. The entertainment world realizes there's a big audience "that embraces a spiritual world view," he says. How well these groups interact "will determine how successful this marriage is."
Paul Lauer, founder of Motive Marketing, declined to comment on his campaign for Narnia, apart from confirming that his firm is handling it.
"Disney, as the consummate corporate animal, is looking at Paul as the guy who delivered the audience of The Passion," says Barbara Nicolosi, of Act One, a program designed to bring Christian writers and executives into the entertainment industry.
Another Christian firm, Grace Hill Media, also has been hired, and several groups have joined the marketing effort. For instance, the Christian Web site hollywoodjesus.com launched a special feature on its site recently devoted to The Chronicles of Narnia.
For its part, Disney is trying to play down the Christian marketing approach, noting that it will reach out to the science-fiction and fantasy communities, as well.
"We don't want to cater to one fan base over the other, or at the expense of another," says Dennis Rice, Disney's senior vice president for public relations.
Failed boycott Leaders of the religious boycott, launched with great fanfare in the 1990s, accused Disney of betraying its family-values legacy by providing health benefits to same-sex partners, allowing Gay Days at theme parks and producing controversial movies, books and TV programming through Disney subsidiaries.
Financial analysts said the boycott had no effect on Disney's bottom line. The Disney-Narnia campaign appears to acknowledge implicitly that the Disney boycott has been a failure.
One of the groups that led the boycott, Colorado-based Focus on the Family, has been included in the early stages of the marketing campaign.
The 16.3 million-member Southern Baptist Convention officially ended its eight-year Disney boycott this week at the denomination's annual meeting.
Bob Waliszewski, the head of teen ministries for Focus, attended a Disney presentation for Narnia at the Burbank studio.
"We have still told families there are disappointing elements at Disney," he says. "We haven't changed that disappointment in Disney. But with Eisner leaving, we're all hoping that Disney will be a better company."
Disney chief executive officer Michael Eisner plans to retire Sept. 30.
For its part, Disney is circumspect about the boycott's apparent end.
"I don't think that this movie is being done as a response to earlier criticism of the company," says Rice. "We think it's a terrific property that's going to make a terrific movie."
Some evangelical critics are not willing to abandon the boycott.
"The departure of the prickly, anti-Christian Michael Eisner, and the advent of the Narnia project might open lines that could lead to a new understanding," says Bob Knight of Concerned Women for America. "Political realities are catching up to Disney, as well, as wiggle room disappears in the culture war."
Best seller Since it was published in the 1950s, Lewis' Narnia series has sold 85 million copies worldwide. Disney's animated features have been international staples for nearly 75 years.
In the Narnia story, a lion named Aslan is a Christ-like figure who offers himself as a sacrifice to save another character. He is tortured and killed.
Then later he is resurrected to transform Narnia into a heaven on Earth.
So far, small groups of Christian leaders and opinion makers from Western states have been invited to Disney's Burbank studios for briefings and screenings of sequences from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
Ted Baehr, founder of the Christian-oriented Movie Guide, called the presentation a "wonderful dog-and-pony show. I think they're going to do a great job marketing to the church."
Baehr is author of the forthcoming overview of Lewis' work, Narnia Beckons: C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe � and Beyond, which is being published by an arm of the Southern Baptist Convention.
There is reason for skepticism about how Lewis, who is beloved by Christians for his religious commitment and his influential collection of essays, Mere Christianity, will be treated in popular culture.
Memo revealed In 2001, HarperCollins, the U.S. publishers of the Narnia books, issued an internal memo � revealed by the New York Times � in which executives urged colleagues to downplay the books' religious dimensions to market them to a mainstream audience.
Any efforts to de-emphasize the religious aspects of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe film are bound to backfire with Christians, according to Take One's Nicolosi.
"Disney and (co-producer) Walden Media are aware that there's a proprietary sense about The Chronicles of Narnia," she says. "C.S. Lewis is our guy. They better not take that away from us." The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, based on Lewis' novel for children and Christian allegory, will be released Dec. 9.
For Disney, the Christian marketing campaign represents a sharp break with corporate policy. Apart from Disney World's annual Nights of Joy concerts, the film is the company's first undertaking with the religious community. For some evangelical leaders, it represents the effective end of their Disney boycott.
The entertainment giant, which bills itself as a "Magic Kingdom," has carefully avoided religion for most of its history. Yet Disney has launched a 10-month campaign aimed at evangelical Christians to build support for Narnia, a $100 million, live-action and computer-generated animated feature it is co-producing with Walden Media.
Disney has hired several Christian marketing groups to handle the film, including Motive Marketing, which ran the historic, grass-roots efforts for The Passion. That film has grossed $611 million worldwide and is now in re-release. "From a marketing point of view, it could be a marriage made in heaven � if the movie is any good," says Adele Reinhartz, professor of religion at Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada.
Dr. Armand Nicholi, who for decades has taught a Harvard seminar on C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud, agrees. The entertainment world realizes there's a big audience "that embraces a spiritual world view," he says. How well these groups interact "will determine how successful this marriage is."
Paul Lauer, founder of Motive Marketing, declined to comment on his campaign for Narnia, apart from confirming that his firm is handling it.
"Disney, as the consummate corporate animal, is looking at Paul as the guy who delivered the audience of The Passion," says Barbara Nicolosi, of Act One, a program designed to bring Christian writers and executives into the entertainment industry.
Another Christian firm, Grace Hill Media, also has been hired, and several groups have joined the marketing effort. For instance, the Christian Web site hollywoodjesus.com launched a special feature on its site recently devoted to The Chronicles of Narnia.
For its part, Disney is trying to play down the Christian marketing approach, noting that it will reach out to the science-fiction and fantasy communities, as well.
"We don't want to cater to one fan base over the other, or at the expense of another," says Dennis Rice, Disney's senior vice president for public relations.
So you plan on only allowing non fiction films and books into your home?
We don't do Santa, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy or Halloween in our home either, although we tell the stories or cultural traditions they are based on we made sure they understood that these were traditional stories. I've never understood the point of tricking children into believing an untruth. Has caused social issues when the radical children blurted out the truth to other children a time or two.
Lewis's stories are just stories, too, but they are grand stories with good morals that hint at a deeper truth. Cultural literacy is as important as history, math and science. You have to choose the stories you plan to impart cultural literacy with and Lewis is far superior to the PC crap churned out in children's lit these days.
Just my two cents.
Of course I enjoy non-fiction. I do however avoid any occultic/magic stories. The Lord is very clear when he says to avoid such stuff and I think he knows whats best for my family and I. There was a time in my life that I enjoyed such fare, but after reading the Bible and learning the truth I know better. When one finally knows the truth, its easy to spot a lie.
One point in the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe that was a lie was that the Witch demanded the sacrifice of the Lion. I've gotten alot of emails (you know the ones that say if you don't forward this you must not love God)that say the same thing (that Satan demanded Jesus to pay the price). That is just a lie. Jesus does not answer to Satan. It's sad though that when we point this out to the Christians that send us those emails they just blow it off - you know cause it had such a "good" message and such cute little dancing bunnies or whatever in the email.
So I'm not in a rush to go see/read more CS Lewis. If I bite into a piece of fruit and it's rotten I don't finish eating it to see if there's any good part of it.
I did like the movie but knowing next to nothing about C.S. Lewis; I was curious to know what someone who did know about him thought of it.
I am incapable of doing so, I assure you.
The guy clearly hasn't read the Narnia books carefully -- there are all sorts of errors throughout that section. (Arslan? huh? hate to see what he would do with that Calormen named Emeth . . .) And I see where you got your idea that there was "sun worship" in the book . . . straight from this guy's "analysis". He's really stretching to get that conclusion . . . since he's apparently ignorant of the traditional eastward (ad orientem) placement of Christian churches and altars and the many, many appellations of Christ as "Sun of Righteousness" (that's in Malachi, by the way), "Dayspring from on high" (and that's Luke), etc. etc. etc.
He seems to rely one hundred percent NOT on the "King James Bible" as he so proudly proclaims, but on his own personal and rather myopic interpretation of it (your mileage may vary). At the same time, he ignores the entire Western canon of theological thought. And since Lewis was a specialist in medieval and Renaissance literature, any examination of Lewis's books by this man simply highlights his ignorance rather than acting as any indictment of Lewis.
Frankly, if this fellow told me the sun rose in the East, I would go outside and check. You can do better than this guy, whoever he is.
Well, first the "movie" you bought is not this version. But do yourself a favor and read the book (it's a quick read for adults) before you make a final judgement.
But, forheavenssake, don't base your opinion on the cartoon version.
We're going the first week of December, so we might actually be there at the same time you are!
I wouldn't DARE go during Christmas Vacation.
GOOD screen name, BTW!
That must have been a lot of fun to see.
Did Marie sing?
I used to watch "Donny and Marie" when I was a kid. I still have a soft spot for them.
My mom's taking my 7-year-old to Disney World in September. Each child gets a trip to Florida when they're 7 (Mom and Dad live in the Orlando area), and gets to pick one major park.
Oh FUN!
I took Caitlin for a "Mommy and ME" trip when she was 7. It was the perfect age...old enough to have some stamina, young enough to still Believe.
I can't wait for grandchildren!LOL!
The Chronicles are obviously not Scripture. But I would cautiously suggest that in them, one can take away some unique and new insights on the character of Christ (Aslan being the Christ character) and on human nature and the darkness lurking in the unredeemed heart, as well as the pull of the flesh on the regenerate heart.
I have learned a lot from them. Perhaps it is my shortcomings that made them helpful, but, even so, they are good.
Elen loves all the princesses, and the rides she's old enough for are the same kind Mom is willing to ride (at 67).
I love the Princesses, too, but Caitlin doesn't have a lot of use for them, except for Mulan.
She loves Alladin, and Woody and Buzz, and Lilo and Tarzan...more of the action sort of movies.
Cant get her to do a Princess Breakfast or anything like that.
SIGH.
-PJ
Actually, the witch demanded the death of Edmund, the traitor (the penalty of sin is death) and Aslan offered himself to pay the blood price.
I realize I'm not going to change your mind, but it seems clear that you are not very familiar with the material and therefore have many mistaken assumptions regarding it.
I am comfortable with Lewis not only because I am very familiar with his writings, but also because they have stood the test of time (good literature outlasts bad) and Christian scholarship. It's not like that kook website is the first to take a shot at Lewis.
There is a great deal of bad writing being passed off today as "Christian Fiction" these days and it is a mistake to deny children real and true literature in favor of marketed pulp.
I wish you and your family well.
Elen is very girly - the only one that is. Anoreth would rather go to a turkey shoot!
Your daughters have good, strong names!
I agree whole-heartedly. A tremendous amount of familiarity with Scripture and theology lies behind the Narnia books, and even though this learning may not always be openly expressed, it shapes what is there. You're getting two thousand years of Christian wisdom condensed into these little stories, and often have no idea when you read them what you're being taught and how--you only know that it "feels" right. Analysis comes later, if at all, and is not really necessary.
I have loved Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings ever since I first read it at the age of fifteen. It sparked my imagination, opened up a love of the natural world, and reintroduced heroic ideals into my life. But the Chronicles of Narnia fundamentally altered who I was. I could never have guessed, at the age of seventeen, somewhat shame-facedly looking at a "kid's book," that the earthquake was about to begin.
Josephine, Eleanor, and Sabina. It'll look good if any of them runs for President :-).
You are blessed!
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