Originally Posted By Rebekah This topic is for discussion of the 8/27/2004 news item <b><a href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?reportID=1162647&storyID=3587193" target="_blank">NZHerald: Animatronic reindeer replace living variety in Narnia pic</a></b> The <I>New Zealand Herald</I> reports animatronic reindeer are filling in the real thing during the filming of <I>The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe</I> to avoid introducing a potentially deadly disease to the island nation.
Originally Posted By kennect Consider me completely out of the loop on this one...Is the news about this film being done by Disney a big thing or not? I really know nothing about the source material but it sounds rather interesting...My next question is this...Is Disney actually putting out the money for this or is this another deal somewhat like "Around the World"? I gather this isn't the first time these stories have been filmed...Bottom line for me is I really don't understand where Disney live action films are headed these days...I am not even sure if they do...Any thoughts and info would be of interest....
Originally Posted By jasmine7 I think the Narnia films are a good place for Disney to go. They have been filmed twice before, once in animated form, and once in live-action by the BBC. Both were okay, but not spectacular. I am holding out hope that this one will be spectacular. I dearly loved these books when I was a kid, so to see it on the big screen will be wonderful.
Originally Posted By narkspud Interesting that the outfit that refuses to release "The Small One" on DVD and won't use the "C" word in Christmas promotions is now doing an unabashedly Christian-themed big-budget movie. No real point in this . . . just "interesting."
Originally Posted By arstogas ^^^They sniff money, Nark. Eisner will exploit the Bible just as quickly as Mickey, if there's a good buck to be made...
Originally Posted By arstogas ^^^I guess that's disingenuous of me... the Narnia books are hardly the Bible, and bringing them to the screen doesn't really represent exploitation. But the business here does look the other way, past hypocricies that keep them from other projects, when their greed gets the better of them. For instance: Creative Artists Agency, in the middle of all the controversy around Mel Gibson, BEFORE "THE PASSION" was released, made a company-wide policy: SPONSOR NO BIBLICAL MATERIAL. If it involved God or Jesus, no go. But stuff with Buddha, or other deities, were completely okay to deal with. So the agents at CAA, most powerful agency in Hollywood, immediately DUMPED any projects that had Biblical stories (not that they had a lot going already, but there's always some) and rejected others. I know of one script, based on a sweeping, Biblical story, that was summarily DUMPED by the agency, in reaction to this maelsrom swirling around Mel Gibson. It had already been optioned by a major, major action producer in Hollywood, and the intent was to get CAA to move it around, expose it to talent, package the thing. But they would have NOTHING to do with this material. If you had anything to do with Biblical stories, Christian stories or Old Testament tales, you were automatically a target as a bigot, bla bla bla. Now, it only took about four weeks to erase that. As soon as THE PASSION quickly climbed toward the top ten list, they not only ABANDONED that "blackballing" attitude, but began to SEEK OUT religious material. It's all about money.
Originally Posted By BrnardM Actually I hope that this attitude adjustment is employed in Narnia. The motivation is wrong but hopefully the end result will work out.
