"The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe was the
first book I ever read. Should I be fearful?" |
Camus |
Dramatis Personnae:
Walter Elias...............A Disney executive
Exec...............Walter's Boss
Walter Elias is a Disney executive. (No he isn't,
but for the purposes of satire, bear with me). Walter
Elias's future depends on him unerringly predicting
it. Walter Elias has been to Cannes. It's 2001. He's
feeling a mite unwell. He has just seen about 40 minutes
of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings.
And he's scared. Very scared.
Walter
knows his own company's digital effects facility (the
'Secret Laboratory') doesn't hold a single, slim candle
to New Zealand's WETA FX company run by the irrepressible
Richard Taylor. Walter knows that their mega-stiff
Dinosaur was beyond hugely expensive and had the charm
of a Dixon's ad campaign. It also had a leading man
(leading dinosaur) named 'Aladar' and if that's not
a synonym for ‘anodyne' I don't know what is.
Let's find a name that is the least offensive to everyone
– which in turn means their drama of a dinosaur
leading a group of dinosaurs to a feeding ground is
insipid and thesaurusly overblown. The movie didn't
quite tank but then it hardly lit up the firmament
despite a marketing budget that would have kept Don
Simpson in cocaine for a whole weekend. The
Lion King was the worst thing to happen to
Disney. It made too much money, put too much pressure
on everyone to deliver a repeat performance and made
subsequent creative choices rather eccentric (check
out the lemur mating dance in Dinosaur.
It's Lebo and all African Lion King leftovers rejigged by the absurdly talented James
Newton-Howard).
2001
belonged to a man who had previously made films about
undead aliens and body fluids so fluid it made you
blink from the spray. After Heavenly Creatures,
Hollywood sat up and said "Yeah, OK. Peter Jackson
can make good movies despite all that gory shit…"
After The Fellowship of the Ring,
Hollywood said "What's the country code for New
Zealand?" Ring in the changes. A maverick had
become mogul and Disney had become slaves to the imaginations
of conservative Oxford Dons. But they didn't know
that just then.
Imagine, 2001, Christmas:
Walter
Elias has to make a business plan for 2002…
He has just seen Lord of the Rings and is in a state
of palpable shock.
| WALTER: |
It's…
Well, it's… Sir, it's extraordinary. |
| EXEC: |
Niagara
Falls is extraordinary. This Rings thing is embarrassing
the shit out of all of us. |
| WALTER: |
To
fight fire with fire, you need the spark, tinder
and kindling. We're wet. |
| EXEC: |
What've
we got? |
| WALTER: |
A
2D cell animation of a yodeling rustler and some
plucky cows… |
| EXEC: |
We
market Home on the Range right and it could go
stratospheric… |
| WALTER: |
No.
It's a stiff and we all know it. |
| EXEC: |
OK,
OK. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
What's this Kiwi got? |
| WALTER: |
Mr.
Jackson's got a globally beloved trilogy… |
| EXEC: |
I'm
well read and not just a Disney exec. The Lord
of the Rings was one book but the publishers insisted
it was divided into three. |
| WALTER: |
Colour
me impressed. One book but in six parts divided
into three volumes. Actually. |
| EXEC: |
The
Kiwi got three cherries. How do we get three cherries
without lion kings? |
| WALTER: |
By
getting seven cherries… |
| EXEC: |
What?
Fuggedaboudit. The sequel will not do anything
close to the same business, mark my words. |
Cut to Christmas 2002:
| WALTER: |
I
marked your words. |
| EXEC: |
Said
in the heat of the moment. Who the fuck is J.R.R.
Tolkein anyway and why isn't he doing publicity?
But who on this good Earth wants to see all those
battles? The Two Towers? Is the Kiwi taking the
piss? Doesn't he know it was the ‘twin'
towers? Remind me. What do I employ you for? |
| WALTER: |
To
come up with ideas? |
| EXEC: |
If
the Kiwi does this again next year, I want more
than ideas. I want a Teflon coated business plan. |
| WALTER: |
Well, as I said last year, there's always the
wardrobe. |
| EXEC: |
What? |
| WALTER: |
The Christian allegory? Gibson's Passion was
hot last year.
|
| EXEC: |
Extreme torture can only get you so far and besides
we want to snare the kids… |
| WALTER: |
Oh, this'll snare the kids… |
| EXEC: |
Hold on that. I just read a script. Perfect Michael
Bay material – The Island! No other movie is
going to touch this. |
| WALTER: |
…with a barge pole. |
| EXEC: |
No problem. It's not as if a second sequel ever
won anything at Oscar night… |
The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
wins 11 Oscars… April 2004
| EXEC: |
King who? |
| WALTER: |
Kong. You know. The gorilla? |
| EXEC: |
So what about the second sequel? |
| WALTER: |
There is another series of books you know. ‘The
Chronicles of Narnia'? |
| EXEC: |
Who directed Shrek? Get him on board. Well, if I'm
going to consider ‘The Chronicles of Riddick',
(a) it has to appeal to the religious right as Bush
has got them all fired up, (b) it has to be realizable
by CGI and (c) it has to be made in New Zealand. I'm
getting a good vibe from there right now. |
| WALTER: |
That decision took three years? What about your principal
decision making process? |
| EXEC: |
My lucky anagram generator? Let's see what we get
from "Disney's Chronicles of Narnia"... "Fairyland
concession shrine!" Let's do it... But drop the
wardrobe. Wardrobes don't float my boat, you know
what I mean. How about ‘The Lion, The Witch
and the Internet Portal'? |
| WALTER: |
And Aslan, the lion (or Jesus as he's more well
known)? |
| EXEC: |
Get a poll out. How pissed off would people be if
we re-named him? |
| WALTER: |
As… |
| EXEC: |
‘Simba''s got a good ring to it,
don't you think? |
|
