'Caspian' minds had to envision book's reality

By Glenn Whipp

Los Angeles Daily News

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 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," 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 Christlike 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 McFeely and 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," 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," 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 indeed 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 but 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," 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."

Disney already has commissioned a third "Narnia" movie, "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader." 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 Markus and McFeely again providing the screenplay.

"The most important thing is maintaining the tone and the theme of the first two movies," Adamson says. "You want the movies to have the same sensibility."

In other words: Don't expect "Dawn Treader" to embark on a spiritual voyage all that different from "Lion" or "Caspian."

With "Caspian" tracking to open with a $60 million to $70 million box-office weekend, the filmmakers seem to have found a middle ground. And as anyone in Hollywood will tell you, that's a magical realm you don't leave until the audience tells you to.