We all know about the Chronicles of Narnia movie series, which began with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005). And we all heard about that adaptation of The Screwtape Letters that Ralph Winter and Walden Media are developing now. Now Mark Moring at CT Movies interviews Ken Wales — producer of Amazing Grace, Christy (1994), The Prodigal (1983), etc. — and discovers that he would like to adapt a C.S. Lewis book, too: What other films do you... Read more

Here are the figures for the past weekend, arranged from those that owe the highest percentage of their take to the Canadian box office to those that owe the lowest. Ma Fille, Mon Ange — CDN $513,061 — N.AM $513,061 — 100%Pan’s Labyrinth — CDN $4,124,585 — N.AM $30,035,000 — 13.7%Hannibal Rising — CDN $1,800,362 — N.AM $22,097,000 — 8.1%Because I Said So — CDN $2,539,454 — N.AM $33,382,000 — 7.6%Music and Lyrics — CDN $1,442,634 — N.AM $19,269,000 —... Read more

The abolitionist biopic Amazing Grace opens in the United States on Friday, and in the United Kingdom a month later, but I have no idea yet when it will come to Canada. In the meantime, it is intriguing to read today’s New York Times feature on the film: Still, the makers of “Amazing Grace” say their movie raises broader issues. For Steven Knight, the film’s British screenwriter, public opinion was for the first time mobilized to press for social reform... Read more

From the New York Times‘s current profile of New Line Cinema chief Robert Shaye and his studio’s “identity crisis”: One thing that has not been blunted by illness is Mr. Shaye’s temper, which flared last year when he was asked about a lawsuit filed by Mr. Jackson over profits from “The Lord of the Rings.” . . . Asked about the remarks last week, Mr. Shaye said that he made the statement “in a moment of emotion” but did not... Read more

Last month, I asked if Indiana Jones IV — which must take place in the ’50s or ’60s — would show how Indy got the daughter that he was living with in the framing narratives of the TV series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, which took place in the ’90s. And just now, I remembered that I posted an item here last July to the effect that Karen Allen told an audience at a screening of Raiders that two of... Read more

Figured I’d toss these out there while I can. 1. Ralph Winter recently talked to Infuze Magazine about various subjects, including: whether Christian horror films — like Thr3e, which he produced — should have R-ratings; the lack of mystery and violence in The Nativity Story; and his own current plan to make a movie based on C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters: Does the movie have a green light? Not yet. We’ve been talking to Randall Wallace about writing and directing.... Read more

“I’m putting in a chase sequence. So the killer flees on horseback with the girl, the cop’s after them on a motorcycle and it’s like a battle between motors and horses, like technology vs. horse.” — Nicolas Cage, star of Ghost Rider, in Adaptation (2002). Read more

My review of Bridge to Terabithia is now up at CT Movies. Read more

The Hollywood Reporter says Aaron Eckhart, star of Thank You for Smoking (2005), is in “final negotiations” to play Harvey Dent, the good district attorney who becomes the villainous Two-Face, in The Dark Knight, the sequel to Chris Nolan’s Batman Begins (2005). The part was played by Billy Dee Williams in Tim Burton’s Batman (1989) and by Tommy Lee Jones in Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever (1995). Methinks Eckhart needs a middle name now that rhymes with “Dee” and “Lee”. Interestingly,... Read more

“We have no ‘anti-evangelical’ agenda. We have an anti-mediocrity agenda.” So says my colleague Jeffrey Overstreet at the Looking Closer Journal, where he has been posting his own two bits about the tempest-in-a-teapot over my review of The Last Sin Eater. I agree entirely. And I would go even further and say that I actually support the making of books and films that are made with an eye towards the evangelical or Christian market. If it seems like Christian film... Read more