Modcult

Dark Is Revolting

I’m pretty bummed out at the news that Walden Media is doing an adaptation of Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising Sequence. It’s playing it very loose with the original material. According to an interview with director David Cunningham:

“Susan Cooper’s world is incredibly rich, and, really, the mythology is the plot in her book,” Cunningham (The Path to 9/11) said. “And our goal has been to try and make this story more accessible to today’s audience and introduce a new generation to her work. And what that means is someone like [writer] John Hodge building on that incredible world and creating moments and some interpretations of her book for us to be able to run with it.”

Among the changes: Hero Will Stanton (newcomer Alexander Ludwig) is now 13, not 11, and he is an American living in a small northern English village, instead of a native-born Brit. The character of the Walker (Jonathan Jackson) has been made younger-appearing and given a new story arc involving the loss of his soul. The movie also beefs up the action by adding new special-effects-enhanced sequences to Cooper’s narrative, Hodge said.

When I initially stumbled upon the trailer, I couldn’t be sure that this was an adaptation of the series I loved as a child. The updated setting and superhero-esque powers didn’t make sense. Not to mention, the title “The Seeker” is not from any of Cooper’s books.

The original sequence was 5 books, with the The Dark is Rising coming second, following Over Sea, Under Stone. Not sure why they opted to skip over that book– perhaps the lack of special effects, as it is carried more on suspense. It will also be interesting to see how Walden Media (who are also responsible for the Narnia films) deals with the Pagan imagery in the books– specifically in the third book, Greenwitch, which chronicles a ritualistic offering similar to The Wickerman.