'The Lion Awakes' – movie in production | Ian-Luke Penwald

I’ve been wondering why a blog post I wrote on the rumoured end of the ‘Chronicles of Narnia’ movie franchise last November has suddenly gone to the top of the ‘most popular’ blogs read on this site and stayed there for a couple of weeks. As I’ve looked through the stats reports, it seems that this particular blog has been turning up in search engines when people are browsing for information on ‘Narnia’. How odd. Has there been an about turn that I don’t know about and the next Narnia film has actually gone into production? Well yes…and no. It looks like C.S. Lewis’ ‘Narnia’ and JRR Tolkien’s ‘Middle Earth’ are about to fuse together on a big screen near you in 2013. Possibly. Sort of….

‘The Lion Awakes’ is a new movie from Three Age Studios that is going into production at the moment and is due for release sometime in 2013. Interesting that the internet movie database – IMDb – makes no mention of the film as at today’s date. My investigations as to why people were searching on’ Narnia’ and finding my blog led me back to the Narniafans.com website and there I got news of the new film. My excitement (being a fan of the books and movies) kind of died down at that point. If this film was coming into being then it may well be one the many that is made in America for America that may never see the light of day anywhere else. My interest was reawakened again today when the studio announced that they are currently in discussion with actor Jude Law for the role of C S Lewis. He’s no bit part actor  and film credits include The Talented Mr Ripley, Gattaca and The Holiday. Maybe they are lining up an international release for this one?

The film will be an historical drama based on real life about the friendship between two of the greatest writers of their genre in the English language – CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien. Set during World War 2 as Nazi bombs are falling on London, Lewis is miles away from danger at Oxford University where he is a Professor. A former atheist now turned to faith, Lewis is caught up in his own internal and intellectual war of exploring and defending his faith against marching, rampant Atheism in British society. Apart from his brother, it would appear that his close friend and fellow lecturer, Tolkien, became the most influential person in his life as he struggles between his childhood love of myth and his adult love of faith. With Britain facing its greatest hour of need, the BBC call up ‘Jack’ Lewis to make a radio broadcast to a desperate nation: will the British Lion of courage once more roar? The Lion – the key character that appears through all the Narnia stories that he would later create – was not yet fully formed in Lewis’ thinking as he battles his doubts with his faith. It is Tolkien who is key in forcing his friend to challenge his doubts and so eventually become one of the most influential authors on the Christian walk this country has ever produced.

I shall be keeping an eye on the progress of this one for sure.

(for related film and entertainment posts, visit the Home page and then check out the ‘category’ archive or the ‘tag cloud’).

Did you like this? Share it:

. Bookmark the

.