It's official! After five agonizing weeks of waiting for news, it has been announced that Fox will co-finance The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader with Walden Media! According to Variety, “the two sides are still working out budget and script issues, but the hope is to shoot the film at the end of summer for a holiday 2010 release through the Fox Walden label.” Walden still controls the movie rights to the books.

It is also revealed that “Richard LaGravanese penned the most recent draft that both Walden and Fox were happy with, but there's a question about his availability because he has been adapting Sara Gruen's bestseller 'Water for Elephants' for Fox 2000.”

Michael Apted will still direct and Ben Barnes, Skandar Keynes, and Georgie Henley will reprise their roles. Will Poulter is also still set to play Eustace.

Interesting Fact: Fox is owned by News Corp, which also owns HarperCollins (Narnia publisher).

Fox 2000 will spearhead development and production matters from the Fox front. Topper Elizabeth Gabler had pursued the “Narnia” franchise but was beaten out by Walden. The Century City studio seems to be an ideal fit for the “Narnia” books given that it's been looking for a family-friendly, lit-based franchise for years — Fox 2000's “Eragon” failed to catch on with audiences and died after one installment.

[. . .]

“Caspian,” which is considered the least commercially appealing of the seven C.S. Lewis “Narnia” novels, ranked No. 10 in global box office performance last year. “Dawn Treader” is considered to be a more family film-friendly book, and the goal is to get back to the magical aspects present in the first “Narnia” pic but mostly absent from “Prince Caspian.”

Fox has lowered the sights for the project though, according to Variety, reducing the budget for the new film to $140m (£98m), considerably less than the $215m spent on previous effort Prince Caspian. Caspian's worldwide receipts of $419m was a long way down on the $745m taken by The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in 2005 and it was considered a box-office disappointment last year. Yet, the figure was still enough to make it one of the 10 most successful films at the international box office in 2008, which may have helped Fox to come to its decision.

I've been accused of sheltering my children from the real world by not allowing them to watch movies like this [. . .]

For now, I am not accusing either you or Truth Seeker [another commentator who disagreed with Davis] of holding to a false gospel. I don't know enough about your beliefs to make such a call. In fact, I haven't accused you of anything, yet you have labeled me as being neo-Pelagian. Enough said on that.

[. . .]

More later ... maybe. I don't want labels thrown around. If you continue doing that, I won't publish your comment.

Bryan, firstly, as for throwing around “labels” in my last contribution — well, I also like to call those “words,” and you yourself used 188 of them in your response. ;-) The label I used in capital letters was neo-Pelagianism, meaning that your views on man’s nature, before and/or after salvation, are remarkably close to that idea.

Theologians both professional and amateur, “good guys” and “bad guys,” have used and continue to use such terms all the time, in order to save space, sort and organize ideas and compare today’s doctrinal views with those of their earlier advocates.

(If you like, I will later use other terms on myself as well, and thus demonstrate their harmless nature and lack of weaponized damage!)

Such terms do not count as an “accusation” per se as you said, but are merely descriptive. And the term I used was in support of my view that your perspective on matters relating to man’s nature are affecting your views on the story elements of films such as The Dark Knight, and apparently other media as well.

To be sure, it is my view that your foundational views are wrong, contrary to common sense and moreover, Biblically untenable; but whether the views are right or wrong — or my ventured connection between the views and your dislike of the film is right or wrong — is another issue.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

Philippians 4:8 (ESV)

This verse came to mind while I was still making a few incidental rounds online, reading a few blogs on which Christian commentators were critiquing The Dark Knight. Already I’ve offered my views, on this site and elsewhere; and as much as I did appreciate the blockbuster Batman film, somehow I’d like to move on and talk about something else. However, the film and its indeed “dark” elements have engendered a variety of reactions within Christendom. And I can’t help but think Christians’ views of the Gospel of grace — whether right or wrong — are affecting how they see stories like this.

I hope some of you won’t be too annoyed here, because in this and in at least two future columns, I hope to categorize those factions and reactions to this film, and novels and films altogether, into three groups. Then I’ll deal with them one by one, ending with the view held by me and many others.


Virtue versus violence

1. Christians shouldn’t expose themselves to negative things no matter how positive other elements are. Darkness can’t mix with light. To do so would be to compromise, expose ourselves to evil and maybe allow Satan to gain a foothold in our lives.

Those who hold this view — or a derivative; my summary can only go so far — would point to the Philippians passage as proof that Christians should avoid thinking much about evil, looking at images of evil or contemplating the reality of evil. Instead, we’re supposed to concentrate on only the good stuff, and thus, only good guys in our stories.

I hope most Christians don’t have the extreme perspective given, purely by accident, by a character in the “Kids Praise” cassettes of the ‘80s and early ‘90s, featuring Psalty the Singing Songbook. In one of the later tapes, Charity Churchmouse, trying to encourage Psalty’s omnipresent cabal of kids not to get depressed and down, sings the words of Philippians 4:8, along with her interpretation (you wild-at-heart guys, please hang tough through this): “I think about bright yellow daisies and daffodils, petunias, and all kinds of posies!” she proclaims. That’s just reading a silly, false and overly feminized view into the verse, though I’m sure that wasn’t Psalty’s intent.

Even the milder form of such a view would seem based on the incidental perception that Philippians 4:8 has a single word in there, which it does not — the word only. If such a meaning of the total-virtue types were true, it seems the apostle Paul would have put in the term between the words think and about — i.e., “think only about these things.” But he didn’t. Everything in this chapter is for encouragement, not a do-this-only command.

When Dent dies, Batman and Gordon try to cover up this madman by lying about who killed the five police officers whom Dent had killed. Batman and Gordon agreed to say that Batman did it.

What? Are you kidding? Save the reputation of the psychopath and destroy the reputation of the true hero? For what reason? So the Joker wouldn't “win.” Lie to honor the dead false hero, who can't help you anymore, and destroy the true hero who can help? That's absurd. It's stupid. It's wrong.

Strong Christian worldview without mentioning Jesus that tells a story about no greater love has any person than to give up his or her life for his or her neighbor, with very strong moral elements such as kindness, courtesy, compassion and all the other cardinal virtues extolled
[. . .]

Yet sometimes they're unintentionally, simplistically comical in directly taking “inventory” of a film's moments.

[. . .] no sex but robots hold hands [. . .]

I think that about sums it up.

Well, here’s the part where I take my turn writing a column about the whole Phillip Pullman / His Dark Materials / my-books-are-about-killing-God muddle that’s been going on recently.

In fact, here’s also the part where I take my turn, finally, writing a column about anything.

(To those who keep up with these sorts of things, I offer my sincerest and most humble and personal apologies for what as of today amounts to several weeks of absence from Speculative Faith column contributions. My days are supposed to be Wednesdays; today is Thursday, of course. Yet late is better than never — either one day, or about 1.5 months.)


The Mohler-nator speaks

My focus here is partly inspired after I read the Dec. 4-posted
blog column by Dr. Albert Mohler, author-speaker-pundit-radio-host, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and eminent theologian-on-the-field extraordinaire.

In the piece, Mohler runs down, for the first time to me anyway, the general plotlines of atheistic author Phillip Pullman’s The Golden Compass, recently released as a film, and the rest of that British writer’s books.

Following the Harry Potter series’ closure and the near-simultaneous seeming dearth of controversy over that, not even J.K. Rowling’s “outing” of Prof. Dumbledore got some Christians nearly as riled as they are now about the Dark Materials movie and books. J.K. Rowling may not be at all as “Christian” as her over-eager Christian defenders have been out to contend, but she wasn’t out to convert people to Satanism either, as other religious hyper-activists strongly maintained.

In this case, though, all those intensely fierce and frantic email forwards floating out there about how evil Philip Pullman is out to brainwash children toward Atheism with his books are, in fact, absolutely true. He’s said before — I’m already weary of the quote being frequently cited — about how all his stuff is ultimately about “killing God.”

(Read the column's remainder at Speculative Faith ...)

Recommended The Addams Family - Volume One

TRUANT OFFICER: “But they’ve got to go to school! Everybody sends their kids to school.”

GOMEZ ADDAMS: “Ridiculous. Why have children just to get rid of them? I’m opposed to the whole nonsense.”