We made an attempt to get someone to this event, but sadly the one person that might have been available had to work during the event. Thankfully another Narnia fan site was able to have someone in attendance. I would have gone myself, but I had a wedding to go to during the conference. Micheal Flaherty is a great friend of mine, and I would have loved to see him again.
Micheal Flaherty
Flaherty will speak in chapel services April 24 at 10 a.m. in Hughes Auditorium. Later that afternoon he will hold a special forum with Asbury College’s C.S. Lewis Scholar, Dr. Devin Brown, titled “Spiritual and Character Lessons from the Narnia Films.” He is also serving a judge for the weekend’s Highbridge Film Festival on April 25.
Prof. Greg Bandy, who produces the Engaging Culture Weekend under the sponsorship of a Lilly Grant, underlines the impact of Flaherty’s presence. “We’re incredibly excited to have Micheal Flaherty as our special guest for this weekend. We’ve been working with Walden Media for several years for good reason. We share their values for stories that matter. Also, Mr. Flaherty has a distinguished background as a visionary educator. We’ve had some good synergies as a result.”
The film company behind the adaption of The Chronicles of Narnia is being honored by the AAP. For its educational efforts, and for raising the awareness of various children’s titles by turning them into movies, Walden Media is receiving the 2009 AAP Honors award.
The company was founded in 1999 and has made films based on a number of iconic children’s titles — including Holes, Because of Winn-Dixie and Bridge to Terabithia — while establishing a significant educational outreach program in the process. Walden’s president, Michael Flaherty, will be presented with the honor at the AAP’s Annual Meeting in New York on March 11.
Congratulations, Walden Media!
The High Calling had a chance to interview Micheal Flaherty about their films and they brought up both Dawn Treader and Screwtape Letters. Here’s a portion of that interview. You can read the rest at the source link above.
Can you give any news about when Screwtape or Dawn Treader will come out?
The first time I spoke with you, I had just received the first draft of Dawn Treader. Literally as we were speaking it was there on my desk. I hadn’t even opened it up yet. I couldn’t wait to read it, though, because Eustace is one of my favorite characters.
Dawn Treader is moving very well. Michael Apted, who directed Amazing Grace, is directing it. He also directed Coal Miner’s Daughter and a bunch of others. He’s a great director. He’s the president of the Directors Guild.
Screwtape on the other hand is just a really tricky adaptation.
I think a big part of being faithful to that work is keeping it dark in a way that’s probably going to bother some people. I don’t know how that works with movie profitability, but Screwtape always takes the approach of the demons. They have to be the heroes—even if they’re tragic heroes—for it to be faithful to what Lewis did.
We’re trying to find that balance between the comedy and the stakes. We’re working hard on the script. One of the questions we’re asking is how do you show the real transformation that happens inside a person.
Screwtape keeps encouraging the patient to go through the motions in his daily life and work.
You just nailed the entire paradox of this project. The book is so clever, because Screwtape is saying things like, “Have them write the check out to Unicef.” Just have him writing, saying, “Oh boy, this is going to hurt.” It goes back to that great Corinthians passage, you can do all of these things, but if you do them without love, it’s worthless. We’re trying to figure out how to illustrate that. What I love about Screwtape, what I love about the Gospel is all this external behavioral stuff that too often people confuse as central to our faith, is just an element of it. What really matters is the outpouring of love and the reflection of love.
It strikes me how much “God is love,” and when we love what we’re doing and when we get other people to love it, there’s truth in it. I’m excited to see what comes out of it.
The tragedy of the 1999 Columbine High School shootings affected Micheal Flaherty in ways he didn’t expect.
“It was a great time of crisis for me,” said Flaherty, keynote speaker Wednesday morning at the 44th annual Wichita Prayer Breakfast at Century II Convention Hall.
Flaherty, president of Walden Media, told the 800 people in attendance that he became “depressed and discouraged” after learning of the shootings.
During his personal crisis, Flaherty said, he began to re-examine his Christian faith. He said he was moved by stories such as that of slain student Cassie Bernall, who some believe was killed after she answered “yes” when a gunman asked her: “Do you believe in God?”
He said the story inspired him to recommit his life to Jesus.
Flaherty said he was disturbed by something else he had heard about the Columbine shooters: They had watched the film, “Natural Born Killers” numerous times.
An entrepreneur and educator, Flaherty had been thinking about getting involved in filmmaking.
Soon after the shootings, he got a call from a friend who was president of a successful film studio that made movies not often suitable for children.
The two talked about the lack of inspirational and wholesome films, and Flaherty asked: “Why don’t we create a new kind of production company that exclusively makes films that all kinds of families can enjoy and also teaches them something, inspires them and engages them?”
After a year of searching for an investor, Flaherty and his friend found one: Kansas native Phil Anschutz, a billionaire investor and founder of Qwest Communications.
Walden Media was created by Flaherty and his friend. The company has produced films such as “Because of Winn-Dixie” and “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.”
“It turned out to be a great success for us,” Flaherty said of “Narnia.” The film has grossed more than $700 million.
Positioned by the studio as an ideal Easter gift, Buena Vista Home Entertainment’s “The Chronicles of Narnia” remained the top-selling DVD for the second consecutive week, according to figures for the week ending April 16.
In an arrangement that will bring a number of children’s book properties into development, Penguin Young Readers Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. and Walden Media LLC, the film and educational services company, have embarked on a multi-year creative and strategic joint venture encompassing publishing, film and television. The agreement was announced today by Doug Whiteman, Executive Vice President of Penguin Group (USA) Inc./ President of Penguin Young Readers Group and Micheal Flaherty, President and co-founder of Walden Media.
The joint venture’s film and television properties will be derived from newly published, forthcoming, and backlist titles for which motion picture rights are available or can be acquired. Penguin Young Readers Group will also co-publish books adapted from Walden Media screenplays and other tie-in related titles. Currently, the joint venture encompasses projects emanating from virtually all of Penguin Young Readers Group’s imprints.
These projects include Mike Lupica’s Heat (Philomel) Joseph Bruchac’s Jim Thorpe, Original All-American (Dial), Zach Helm’s Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium (Dutton and Puffin), The Tortoise and the Hippo, Bob Fuller’s Paddywhack Lane (both Grosset & Dunlap), and Michael Reitman’s The Teacher’s Edition (Razorbill). The first jointly published book, Jim Thorpe, Original All-American (to be published in August 2006) and tells the story of the legendary athlete’s college football days. Thorpe will also be the subject of the forthcoming Walden Media film Carlisle School.
A key aspect of this joint venture is that Walden Media will maintain a presence in Penguin’s New York offices. Under the direction of Walden Media Vice President of Publishing Deborah Kovacs, Walden will maintain an active role in the editorial and marketing process on projects emanating from this partnership. All books co-published under this joint venture will feature the Walden Media imprint alongside that of one of Penguin’s brands. In addition, Walden Media and Penguin will combine forces to promote and publicize their joint projects throughout the education, library and trade markets. The move marks an expansion into the publishing world for Walden Media.
Penguin Young Readers Group is a global leader in children’s publishing. Its imprints are home to Ludwig Bemelmans, Judy Blume, Jan Brett, Eric Carle, Roald Dahl, Tomie dePaola, Don Freeman, Eric Hill, Brian Jacques, Robert McCloskey, A. A. Milne, Richard Peck, Patricia Polacco, and dozens of other popular authors. Penguin Young Readers Group is also proud of its favorite characters such as The Little Engine That Could and Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, and modern classic novels like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Westing Game, and The Outsiders.
Produced by Walden Media in association with Walt Disney Pictures, the Academy Award(R)-winning film, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was the top grossing domestic release of the 2005 holiday season. To date it has made over $700 million in the box office world-wide. Upcoming Walden Media film releases include Hoot and How to Eat Fried Worms with New Line Cinema, and Charlotte’s Web with Paramount and Nickelodeon Movies.
Doug Whiteman commented, “I am immensely pleased with the early progress of this venture. The people with whom we’ve been working at Walden Media have all taken a true partnership approach to our relationship, and have been focused on making great things happen with great books. That is their mission, and they live and breathe it.”
Micheal Flaherty commented, “For years, teachers, after school group leaders and librarians have been advocating for Walden Media to move into the publishing space. With the tremendous partnership we’ve established with our friends at Penguin, we can finally maximize the strong trust we developed with our audience and deliver the high level of quality product in publishing that we do in our films.”
Micheal Flaherty is the president of a movie studio that manages budgets in excess of $100 million. He’s also a Christian. If you think that this might make him the target of a lot of suspicion, you’d be right. Any time big money and religion get mixed, B.S. radars start working overtime. Mine included, alas!
But Flaherty is pretty open about the purpose of Walden Media. He recently told Christianity Today that he and Cary Granat started the company “to find a way to make more great, inspiring films that can lift people up and encourage them.” Because they realized that the “media really does have a role in influencing hearts and minds,” they decided, “rather than just to curse the darkness, to light a few candles and get more great films out there.”
“We try to be a voice for parents, teachers, pastors, youth leaders, librarians – people who work actively with kids,” Flaherty said. “We find out what stories really get these kids motivated to love reading.” So his number one agenda is not, as many liberal skeptics might think, spreading the message of Christianity. It’s also not, as many conservatives suspect, pandering to Hollywood. It’s not even, to be perfectly honest, making “art.”
“We’re trying to build a brand for Walden as something that parents, pastors, teachers and librarians are really comfortable with. So if they see our logo on a movie poster, they’ll know that they’re going to get a certain experience.”
That “certain experience” is familiar to anyone who’s seen one of Walden’s better films: Holes, Because of Winn-Dixie, or The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The movies convey a sense that Walden’s production teams really paid attention to the books upon which they were based; that the filmmakers actually liked the books; and that they know how to show an audience a good time. For better or worse, Walden’s films also lack a certain spark, the kind that elevates a film to the level of a cinematic classic.
And that’s probably as it should be, given that Flaherty’s objective is not to inspire the next generation of filmmakers.
[More at Hollywood Jesus]
[Interview at Christianity Today Movies]
The Dec. 9 release of “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” the potential Christmas blockbuster based on a novel by Christian writer C.S. Lewis, may signal Hollywood is focusing more on audiences for whom religion is important.
David DiCerto, a movie reviewer for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said he has noticed a greater number of movies being targeted toward Christian audiences.
This can be seen as “an economic byproduct of the success of ‘The Passion of the Christ,’” he said.
With Mel Gibson’s film grossing more than $400 million in worldwide box office proceeds, according to an Associated Press report, Christian audiences are establishing themselves as a lucrative market for Hollywood producers. Grass-roots evangelical campaigns are starting to grow around religious-themed movies being released.
In October, Stonebriar Community Church in Plano hosted about 300 moviegoers excited to get a sneak peek of “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.” Attendees were selected as local faith leaders. The event was one of 140 held across the United States by Motive Entertainment, which also conducted similar events for the “The Passion.”
The event at Stonebriar was billed as an “exclusive experience for leaders of faith in the community.” It was attended by Michael Flaherty, president of Walden Media, the Narnia film production company, and Doug Gresham, co-producer of the film and stepson of Lewis.
For Flaherty and Walden Media, attending the outreach-oriented sneak peek was just one part of promoting the movie.
“We’re willing to talk to almost all audiences that want to hear about the movies we make,” he told the Texas Catholic, newspaper of the Diocese of Dallas. “People seem to be interested that we’re going to churches to promote this movie, but we’re also going to schools, libraries, Boy Scout and Girl Scout groups. We’re going everywhere.”
Right now, the heat is really on Flaherty and Walden Media, the film studio producing The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, releasing December 9. Walden partnered with Disney to market and distribute the film, but Walden Media retained all creative control. So, if you like the movie, you can thank Walden Media. If you don’t like it, you’ll know exactly where to lay the blame.
Since Wardrobe – one of C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia – is among the most-loved books in evangelical circles, Flaherty, a Christian and Narnia fan himself, says the pressure to get it right is “insane.” But Flaherty, 37 and the father of three young children, promises it will be a “fantastic, faithful adaptation.”
Some people say Phil Anschutz is just the big-money guy at Walden. How would you describe his role?
Flaherty: He’s intimately involved. Cary and I speak with him several times a week. When we first met with Phil [in 2000] and he decided he wanted to invest in the company, he was involved in everything from writing the mission statement to helping us identify properties. He asked us for ideas of books we would like to turn into films. We mentioned The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and [learned] that was really on Phil’s heart. He really wanted to see that film get made.
You said the Narnia conversations started in 2000. Where did it go from there? Did you just put it on the back burner?
Flaherty: No, it was definitely front burner. We needed to track down where the rights were, and that took up most of 2001 – speaking with Douglas Gresham and the C. S. Lewis estate. Phil and Douglas had many great conversations, and I think Phil really won Douglas’s trust and confidence that he would make a faithful adaptation.
Which couldn’t have been easy, because they’re pretty protective of Lewis’s estate.
Flaherty: Very protective. And I’m grateful that Douglas gave us the chance, because when they were talking to us, we hadn’t released a single film yet.
Why the partnership with Disney for The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe?
Flaherty: Because the marketing and distribution of films is such an enormous undertaking. With this film, we have full creative control, while Disney is in control of the marketing and distribution. They’re certainly proving that there was no better studio to take this and really create a great franchise with it. We couldn’t be happier with the job that they’ve done.
But hiring the filmmakers and making all the big decisions is all Walden?
Flaherty: All Walden. And that was all in place before we closed any deal with Disney.
For the rest, visit the source link.
Christians tend to think of Hollywood as a modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah inhabited by the living dead. Indeed, evidence would indicate that the Sodom and Gomorrah part is pretty accurate. But its citizenry consists of all kinds, including those who desire to create family friendly films and those who even proclaim a relationship with the Almighty.
One such man is Micheal Flaherty, who, along with college friend Cary Granat, formed Walden Media (”Because of Winn Dixie“; “I Am David“) six years ago. Their purpose was to make great films from celebrated literature.
(Actually, Walden Media is located in Boston, but then, there really is no Hollywood nucleus. The populous of the entertainment community resides throughout the world.)
Forming the film production company was a challenge, one not taken lightly by the company’s founders.
“We want to be the next great trusted brand for families, particularly for teachers, libraries and parents,” Flaherty says. “And we have to deliver on our mission to use the film and the book to make learning more exciting for kids.”
The Walden Media CEO’s now face their greatest challenge and very likely their most rewarding contribution to the film world — the making of “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.”
Based on the best-selling children’s book by C.S. Lewis, the story concerns four children who discover a magical wardrobe that transports them into the realm of Narnia, a land inhabited by talking animals and many a life lesson. There, the children join forces with the courageous lion, Aslan, to defeat the evil forces of the White Witch.
“We go to a lot of teacher conferences, library conferences, curriculum conferences,” Flaherty says. “That’s an opportunity for us to ask teachers and librarians what books their students are reading. And what books they want to see made into movies. The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe has always been at the top of the list.”
A step up from most children’s fables, the book and the film are full of Christian analogies and symbolism. What’s more, many churchgoers find that the story serves to open a dialogue between parent and child concerning the sacrifice Jesus made on our behalf.
Asked if this religious kinship raised eyebrows at Disney, Flaherty says, “No, no one ever separated out themes or characters from the book anytime we had a discussion about it. Everyone embraced it as a great story.”
With Disney embracing the Christian philosophy of C. S. Lewis, surely that means a filmmatic makeover.
“Well first, the film is the book, pure and simple,” Flaherty says. “So any themes in the book are there in the film. For me, the main themes are family and forgiveness. Those are the two great themes. I especially pay attention to them now that I have three children. What’s unbelievable is the friendships between the brothers and sisters in the story. And of course, the theme of forgiveness is beautifully incorporated.”
“There are a couple of educational guides on the site (Walden.com) that parents can work on with their kids. Basically, it details how we brought the book to life. It also goes into some history behind The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe and its author.”
If Wardrobe fits moviegoers, will Walden Media embrace other projects by the author?
“I’d love to,” Flaherty said. “One of our first projects was The Question of God, a documentary that examines the religious debate between Sigmund Freud, a life-long critic of religion, and C.S. Lewis, who became America’s most influential proponent of faith based on reason. Screwtape Letters is one of my favorite books and Mere Christianity was one of the most influential books in my life.”
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