C.S. Lewis fans.....Screwtape Letters

Cool, I'm a big CS Lewis fan! Didn't care for Wardrobe movie, but this one could be better, since it is darker and more adult.
 
Thanks for posting this. Interesting news, although I have my doubts about their ability to make this into a good movie.

The book is more a philosophical treatise than a story, in my opinion, and will have to be reworked nearly to the point of being unrecognizable to be made into a narrative film...

Besides which, Walden Media develops movies for children. I think there is little in "The Screwtape Letters" that will be understood or of interest to kids, to say nothing of the "appropriateness" of the subject matter for young viewers.
 
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Couldn't agree with you more Jared.
'Screwtape' is definitely one of my favorites (as far as Lewis is concerned) - but I really can't see how it can be made into a movie without destroying what makes it so wonderful.

Interesting news nonetheless.


Edited to add:
Yeah, I've lost faith in this (not a play on words)

Randall Wallace is the guy slated to write and direct. Looking at his filmography it doesn't exactly scream "subtle" (the guy wrote Pearl Harbor).

 
he's also doing Atlas Shrugged?

does he just hate great authors, or love books that can't be translated visually?
 
Luis Caffesse said:

Randall Wallace is the guy slated to write and direct. Looking at his filmography it doesn't exactly scream "subtle" (the guy wrote Pearl Harbor).
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I attended an arts conference at Willow Creek church a few years ago and he was a featured speaker/guest. He was a very down to earth kind of guy and committed to being a Christian in the industry. I would think he will keep to the spirit of the book.

Sounds cool, but I still wonder how it would translate to the screen.
 
RokMartian said:
I attended an arts conference at Willow Creek church a few years ago and he was a featured speaker/guest. He was a very down to earth kind of guy and committed to being a Christian in the industry. I would think he will keep to the spirit of the book.
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I'm not really concerned with his religious convictions, I'm more concerned with his abiiity to write and direct a good film.
And looking at his filmography I don't see anything that would lead me to believe that he can pull off something like 'Screwtape.'
Then again - maybe he'll surprise us all.

Hans Moleman said:
he's also doing Atlas Shrugged?

does he just hate great authors, or love books that can't be translated visually?
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Hahhahahahahaha
:thumbsup:
 
Luis Caffesse said:
Couldn't agree with you more Jared.
'Screwtape' is definitely one of my favorites (as far as Lewis is concerned) - but I really can't see how it can be made into a movie without destroying what makes it so wonderful.

Interesting news nonetheless.


Edited to add:
Yeah, I've lost faith in this (not a play on words)

Randall Wallace is the guy slated to write and direct. Looking at his filmography it doesn't exactly scream "subtle" (the guy wrote Pearl Harbor).
Click to expand...

I agree. I'm curious how they will make this, since from what I remember, it's more a collection of correspondence? The title alone is intriguing and the character 'Wormwood' sounds like something from a J.R. Tolkien story. Maybe they will have 'dramatizations' of the letters? Or a lot of V.O. film noir style?
 
What basically happens is Screwtape explaining to his nephew why he has to get the soul he's after, and what happens if he doesn't. He doesn't. Those are really the only two "plot" points. The rest is just a treatise on the nature of the Church.
 
How many of you guys liked Braveheart. I don't know many men who wrote that one off.....Randall Wallace was the writer. As far as the book being a unrecognizable, yes they will have to take some creative libertly, obviously they can't go directly page for page, but there is alot left to the imagination in this book, in between each letter there are things taking place that aren't written. We'll see, I'm stoked about it, and yes partly because of the messege it speaks...it reveals a truth that has been burried in our culture.
 
Screwtape isn't Braveheart. Those things which made BH appealing to "men" simply aren't present in Screwtape's story. If you add in a lot of Braveheart-style grunting or Pearl Harbor-style explosions, you've completely veered from the material.

I just don't see how you can make a feature-length narrative out of it. If you do, it will by necessity have very little to do with the actual text other than the two basic things I mentioned above. That would not be my idea of "done right."

To say nothing of what you'd have to do to it in order to give it Hollywood's idea of "mass appeal."
 
David Jimerson said:
Screwtape isn't Braveheart. Those things which made BH appealing to "men" simply aren't present in Screwtape's story. If you add in a lot of Braveheart-style grunting or Pearl Harbor-style explosions, you've completely veered from the material.
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Exactly my point - I don't see much subtlety in the guys filmography.
 
David Jimerson said:
Screwtape isn't Braveheart. Those things which made BH appealing to "men" simply aren't present in Screwtape's story. If you add in a lot of Braveheart-style grunting or Pearl Harbor-style explosions, you've completely veered from the material.

I just don't see how you can make a feature-length narrative out of it. If you do, it will by necessity have very little to do with the actual text other than the two basic things I mentioned above. That would not be my idea of "done right."

To say nothing of what you'd have to do to it in order to give it Hollywood's idea of "mass appeal."
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I guess that's for the big guys to decide....meanwhile I'm waiting with great anticipation.....oh the comment on Braveheart wasn't that the Screwtape letters should have a scottish Mel Gibson chopping off heads, it was meant to demonstrate the talent it took to write the film. Do you really think Randall Wallace is limited to testosterone driven plots written soley to make people lust after blood or explosions....comon' man look at the "love story" part of Braveheart. It was good because of its abitlity to make people passionate about the things that matter. But anyhow I'm not here to debate, just express my excitement about the potential of the Screwtape letters.
 
Well to be fair, in Wallace's own words, the Pearl Harbor film we saw was not the Pearl Harbor film he wrote. Just look at who directed that one. Don't know the skinny on the Man Behind the Iron Mask though (yikes).

But as others have said, there's gonna have to be some significant additions to the 'story' in order to have some narrative flow worthy of being SEEN. Not that that has to be a bad thing. It's an adaptation so it's automatically a case of you're poo poo'd if you do and you're poo poo'd if you don't. Adapted for the screen means changing this bit here, adding that there, and leaving out that bit altogether. Tricky business. Just ask Charlie Kaufman...or his brother :)

Interested in this nonetheless...
 
I thought about this some more...It's been a while since I read the book, but if I recall correctly, the plot is as follows: A senior demon in Satan's ranks counsels his greenhorn nephew through a series of darkly humorous letters on the best methods of temptation as applied to his assignment -a young man on earth- with the ultimate goal, obviously, of damning the man to hell for all eternity.

With Narnia, it was easy enough for the writers/director/studios to gloss over the inherent spiritual aspects in order for the stories to be palatable for a wide audience. Which is not as big of a deal as one might think - Lewis never even meant for the series to be religious allegory. What religious references there are exist for the same reason there are references to medieval, greek, roman, and persian mythologies: Lewis was both a Christian and a scholar focused on medieval literature and mythologies in general. All of these themes appear in the Narnia series because they were part of his background and important to him - not because he was attempting to proselytize children. (An accusation which he resented. The books, as far as he was concerned, were wholesome entertainment and nothing more.)

Screwtape is an entirely different animal. The story is 100% about Christianity, the church on earth, temptation, lust, the fall of man, angels versus demons, moral imperatives, etc. I can see it tackled by a Christian studio, but I'm really baffled as to how Walden/Fox will manage to strip it of its religiousity. Or dare they release it with those themes intact? If so, who will watch that? Are they banking on "Passion dollars?"

Don't mean to beat a dead horse, if this one's already dead, but I am really curious as to the choice in material here. I almost wonder if, with the success of the first Narnia movie, the higher ups aren't, in a semi-uneducated way, thinking that there must be some sort of magic children's story to be found in all of Lewis's novels and that they must all be made into movies at once. There will be some shocked execs when the movie versions of "Pilgrims Regress" or "That Hideous Strength" flop at the box office :) (I thought you said there was a lion in this one? Isn't this that C. S. Lewis guy? He's like J. K. Rowling, right?)
 
Jared Meyer said:
Don't mean to beat a dead horse, if this one's already dead, but I am really curious as to the choice in material here. I almost wonder if, with the success of the first Narnia movie, the higher ups aren't, in a semi-uneducated way, thinking that there must be some sort of magic children's story to be found in all of Lewis's novels and that they must all be made into movies at once. There will be some shocked execs when the movie versions of "Pilgrims Regress" or "That Hideous Strength" flop at the box office :) (I thought you said there was a lion in this one? Isn't this that C. S. Lewis guy? He's like J. K. Rowling, right?)
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Probably OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET would be the most likely choice for a "family-friendly" film. There are "animal-like" other-worldly creatures in that book. (But they'd probably ruin it by turning them into something like Ewoks...)
 
i always thought "the great divorce" was not only a better book but it also was told rather visually. i think that title would be much easier to tackle from a filmmaking standpoint than the screwtape letters. i certainly do hope he proves me wrong. c.s. lewis is my one of my favorite authors to ever live...but this is not a book that you can really "visualize" while you read.

we'll see i suppose.
 
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