By Jason Apuzzo. MPower Pictures, the people behind Bella, The Stoning of Soraya M and American Carol, are apparently joining Beloved Pictures in an adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ Christian allegorical novel, The Great Divorce. MPower’s Steve McEveety, one of the producers of The Passion of the Christ, will be leading the production team according to Variety. Children’s book author N.D. Wilson (100 Cupboards) is attached to write the screenplay. John Shepherd is reported to have brought the project in for MPower. Beloved Picture’s team includes CEO Michael Ludlum, president Caleb Applegate, and VP Bob Abramoff.
I have not read The Great Divorce, but the story apparently involves a narrator who finds himself in a dark, gray metropolis – a city that serves as a kind of metaphorical stand-in for Hell. He eventually boards a bus bound for Heaven, discovering along the way that he and his fellow passengers are actually dead. The passengers are given the opportunity to enter the verdant, elysian fields of Heaven – although, ironically, most choose to cling to their past and return to their hellish metropolis. The novel apparently probes the many reasons that people resist the better life Christ has waiting for them.
Lewis’ novel was also apparently intended as a response to William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, hence the title.
Due to the Narnia series, we all know that C.S. Lewis is hot right now in Hollywood circles – particularly in the Christian community. My sense from reading the internet write-ups on The Great Divorce (see the Wikipedia entry), is that there are significant opportunities for CGI here both in the depictions of the dark, hellish metropolis – and in the depiction of heaven. The bus, given the environmental sensitivity of our times, will probably need to be an electric bus. Just kidding.
We will continue to monitor this story. We’ve had Steve McEveety as a guest at several Liberty Film Festivals, and we want to wish him and his entire team the best on this ambitious project.
Posted on June 22nd, 2010 at 12:14pm.
CS Lewis has many works that I think could be made into film, television, webisodes, etc… and I’m happy to see more than just Narnia is being considered.
This is the first I’ve heard of any of the producers of “The Passion” making another Christian-themed film. They seemed to be doing all sorts of other projects, and yet with “The Passion” making so much money for them all, I really thought they would have followed up with more Christian projects before now. I mean, Gibson made “Apocalypto,” McEveety made “American Carol” and “Stoning of Soraya M.,” but it sort of surprised me that they hadn’t made anything Christian-themed since “The Passion.” Was it because they took so much heat for “The Passion” from the Hollywood left?
Didn’t MPower also make or distribute “Bella”? I believe that had a Christian/pro-Life themes. I’m interested how they handle “The Great Divorce.” Movies with heavy moral/religious themes like this can be difficult to film, unless they turn it into a CGI action or fantasy film.
The 19th century Scottish writer George MacDonald is a major character in Lewis’s “The Great Divorce.”
C.S. Lewis said of George MacDonald —-
“Most myths were made in prehistoric times, and, I suppose, not consciously made by individuals at all. But every now and then there occurs in the modern world a genius–a Kafka, or a Novalis–who can make such a story. MacDonald is the greatest genius of this kind whom I know.”
This is the first I’ve heard of any of the producers of “The Passion” making another Christian-themed film. They seemed to be doing all sorts of other projects, and yet with “The Passion” making so much money for them all, I really thought they would have followed up with more Christian projects before now. I mean, Gibson made “Apocalypto,” McEveety made “American Carol” and “Stoning of Soraya M.,” but it sort of surprised me that they hadn’t made anything Christian-themed since “The Passion.” Was it because they took so much heat for “The Passion” from the Hollywood left?
I think the general feeling was that lightning was not likely to strike twice. Also I don’t think Gibson found another Biblical-themed story that moved him as much to go through the hassle again.