Winter Wardrobe

Hollywood: With promises to be faithful to C.S. Lewis, and a marketing campaign reminiscent of The Passion, Disney and Walden Media move ahead with plans to bring The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to movie theaters | Andrew Coffin

Listening to him speak, Andrew Adamson sounds a lot like Peter Jackson. And it's not just because the director of Shrek shares the distinctive accent of his fellow New Zealander. Mr. Jackson took on the enormous task of translating J.R.R. Tolkien's beloved Lord of the Rings novels to the screen, and succeeded in large part due to an almost fanatical dedication to his source material. Now, Mr. Adamson has taken on the similarly daunting task of bringing C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to theaters.

At the Disney Studio complex in Burbank, Calif., to introduce the film to the "faith community," Mr. Adamson enthusiastically explained that he had read all seven books in the Chronicles of Narnia series in about 10 days when he was 8 years old. And as with Mr. Jackson, this dream project was guided by a strong sense of responsibility to its source. "I want to be very faithful to the book, very true to the book, true to my childhood memories of the book," he said.