Michael Apted Talks To Us About Narnia, Visualising Fantasy, A 3D Controversy And More

This interview, not to put too fine a point on it, was one of the most satisfying I’ve ever taken part in, simply because Michael Apted is thoughtful, articulate and interesting.

Here’s what I asked him about:

• The difficulty of visualising fantastical things from novels of this kind.
• The modern visual language of the set-pieces and storyboarding.
• Rehearsing the actors.
• Inheriting cast members when making a sequel and the studio having casting approval.
• Will Poulter, the film’s secret weapon.
• The film’s in-development transition from Disney to 20th Century Fox.
• The 3D post-conversion and Joe Dante’s controversial comment that Apted was allegedly dissatisfied with the studio’s desire to release this film in 3D.
• If he shares the film’s religious outlook.

This conversation could have used more time and, maybe, a bit of distance from the film’s release to really get into everything I wanted to ask about, but I do hope you’re as absorbed by Mr. Apted’s responses as I was.

I’m quite clear that The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is the best of the three Narnia films by some considerable measure, and that Will Poulter’s performance as Eustace is the stand-out turn by any young player from anywhere in the series. The 3D conversion is relatively unobtrusive, and certainly stays well clear of the dreaded Clash of the Titans realm of botchery, but I do feel that some opportunities to use the stereo-optic toolkit more creatively and persuasively have been missed. There’s one or two highlights in the 3D however, and even something very innovative, but I’ll come back to that in another post. Soon…