Moved from Main - the Dark is rising series and movie

[Eustace_Scrubb]

<marion11111 at ...> wrote:

> I'm trying to be open-minded since this is the same studio that did 
> Narnia and I thought that was a pretty decent adaptation, but this 
> one really does look awful.

Now Eustace_Scrubb:

I think a lot of people were banking on the fact that Walden Media was
involved and that they had done a pretty decent job with The Lion the
Witch and the Wardrobe.  

Alas for those of us who didn't understand the complexities of movie
production (I sure didn't).  The Narnia movies are being done by
Walden with Walt Disney Pictures as the production company and
distributor, The Movie Formerly Known as The Dark is Rising was
parcelled out to Marc Platt Productions with distribution by 20th
Century Fox.  While Walt Disney (for better or worse) is a known
quantity, Marc Platt Productions is not.  Their most recent previous
credit is the political hatchet-job TV movie "The Path to 9-11" and
they've also got the Legally Blonde movies and the live action version
of "Josie and the Pussycats" to their "credit."  Suffice it to say
that Walden didn't vette their potential for adapting The Dark is
Rising well enough (maybe not at all).  I suppose who Walden decides
to work with on a film depends on their judgement about the financial
potential--I'm sure Marc Platt Productions isn't as expensive to work
with as Disney. And of course a lot of the built-in marketing
potential of Narnia (its Christian content) is not only lacking in the
Dark is Rising, the pre-Christian elements of the books could affront
that part of the audience (not justifiably, in my view, but there you
go...).

As others have pointed out, the casting directors seem to have an
unfortunate obsession with former child stars of American TV (Jonathan
Jackson as the Walker? I don't know who would have worked...Andy
Serkis?...but not Jonathan Jackson! Canadian Gregory Smith of Everwood
as Max...furthermore as a Max who apparently gets in league with the
Dark and follows Will through time?  Yikes.  And I get the feeling
that they want the twins (Paul and Robin) to take their cue from Gred
and Forge, but maybe I'm wrong.

The real shame is that Susan Cooper has an impressive resume as a
screenwriter and unlike Rowling probably could have adapted her own
book with the needs of the screen in mind quite well.  Instead, they
went with the screenwriter who did Trainspotting.  Oh, well.

Surprisingly, I think my 12-year old son, who finished the sequence
over the summer and says OoTP was the worst HP movie because they cut
so much out, still wants to see The Seeker (without any illusions of
its being an "adaptation" of the Dark is Rising).  I'll probably go
to,remembering the old horror-movie tagline as we go in: "Keep
repeating...It's Only a Movie...It's Only a Movie."

Sorry, didn't mean to rant so long.  At least this will make me more
tolerant of Steve Kloves and the various directors of the HP movies.

Cheers,

Eustace_Scrubb