Interview with Andrew Adamson

The Chronicles of Andrew Adamson

By Steven Zeitchik and Gregg Goldstein

Tonight was the premiere of "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian," and though we're hardly in the target demo, that gave us a chance to have a nice casual sit-down with writer-director Andrew Adamson.

A laid-back New Zealander with the look of a surfer-boy and the work ethic of a presidential candidate, Adamson's had a rather unique career. Primarily an fx guy, he landed a job when DreamWorks signed him to write and direct what was then a small movie that was basically testing some new stop-motion technologies. That movie was "Shrek," and a few star voices, plenty of sharp storytelling and some shrewd marketing later, a pop-cultural sensation was born. Though it should be noted, it wasn't quite that smooth -- Adamson basically shot the film three different times over a period of four years, dumping a first cut he himself didn't like. After that cut endured a bad screening, Jeffrey Katzenberg sat Adamson down to tell him he wanted a new version. "He thought he was breaking the bad news," Adamson says. "To me it was a relief."

After the movie became a hit, Adamson then wanted to stick around for the sequel --"we were trying to create something a little more complicated with the second film," he said."And I wanted to protect what I had created."

He's doing the same thing for "Narnia," writing and directing a more ambitious follow-up to an already well-told original. And while Adamson hardly seems like the most obvious choice to adapt a set of books that many Christians take as Scriptural parable -- the director has a wry, slightly subversive sense of humor that has him telling stories about how C.S. Lewis became a Christian after taking a motorcycle ride with J.R.R. Tolkien ("It makes you wonder what happened on that ride") -- he says he enjoyed playing with the big themes and devices of the source material without dwelling on any religious significance. "So many movies have a Resurrection story. 'Stars Wars' has a Resurrection story. 'The Matrix' has one."

He's also, one sense,s a punctilious type; after more than a year of shooting and posting the new "Narnia" pic, he was still fiddling a week ago and just finished the film. In fact, until a few days ago he carrying two alternate versions of one reel.

For his next gig, Adamson is contemplating directing one of several movies he's already producing. The juicies choice is another allegory, though with a far different tone: a movie called "Benighted" that's kind of an adult parable about a world ruled by werewolves but where a minority of humans must take control during the full-moon part of the month and the werewolves lose their heads. Adamson says it has echoes of apartheid and other political themes.

And the next Narnia pic, which is slated to go into production in the fall? Adamson's attached as a producer but he's not looking to get too involved. "I think it would be great to sit on the beach somewhere and take a phone call," he said. Somehow we doubt there'll be too much beach-sitting in his future.