The Family Business
Walden Media breaks out as an unlikely power player by perfecting Hollywood's least sexy genre: the family filmApril 28, 2006
By JEFF JENSEN
Entertainment Weekly
Cary Granat began to see the light the day his daughter saw her first R-rated movie. Like many conversion stories, the epiphany would take a while to sink in. As the president of Dimension Films, Granat oversaw the creation of slick genre flicks like Spy Kids, Scary Movie, and the Scream franchise. Yet there were voices in his life nagging him about all that edgy, youth- centric pop he was making. His conscience was telling him that the movie industry's images and music were molding a generation of cynics and narcissists. His wife was warning him there was "no deeper meaning" in the films he was making. And his grandfather--Granat's mentor, a rabbi and philanthropist--was urging him: "Make the major change. You're stuck."
It all started one day in 1997, when Granat walked into his living room and discovered his daughter watching some work he had brought home from the office: dailies from Scream 2. There, on the TV screen, was the black-robed, ghoul-masked killer he had helped turn into an icon, chasing Courteney Cox around a recording studio with a knife. Granat's daughter was terrified. She was also only 2 years old. In that moment, he considered the prospect of his little girl growing up steeped in the kind of culture he was producing. And he realized that something--or someone--needed to make that major change.
The solution to Granat's soul-nettling angst was to create a company that has since emerged as a new, if unlikely, Hollywood power player: Walden Media, producer of last year's faith-and- family steamroller The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which had a global gross of $734 million. (Before that, Walden produced the niche hits Holes and Because of Winn- Dixie.) Funded from the deep pockets of billionaire businessman and Christian conservative Philip Anschutz, the burgeoning studio now hopes to build on its Narnia success with an ambitious slate of films formulated from its signature strategy: high-quality adaptations of kid-lit classics supported with aggressive, education- focused grassroots marketing. Leaping from page to screen this summer are Carl Hiaasen's eco-caper Hoot (May 5) and the boys-will- be-boys perennial How to Eat Fried Worms (Aug. 25). Christmas will bring E.B. White's Charlotte's Web, starring Dakota Fanning as Fern and Julia Roberts as the voice of the most beloved word-spinning arachnid in bookdom. Scheduled for next year: a 3-D version of Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth and the sequel to Wardrobe, Prince Caspian. (Maybe. See sidebar on opposite page.)
Walden's rise has been fueled by its exclusive focus on Hollywood's least sexy genre: the family film. No, these movies aren't Scream -ishly cool--but they are packing the theaters rather consistently in these uncertain box office times. (See family hits like Eight Below, Ice Age: The Meltdown, March of the Penguins, anything Pixar.) "'Family films' do have a stigma: limited audience, kinda boring," says Hoot producer Frank Marshall (the Indiana Jones and Back to the Future sagas). "The great breakthrough Walden has made has been in making quality family films that appeal to all ages. They've succeeded by broadening the definition."
In making a splash at the right time with the right genre and the right approach, Walden finds itself cultivating an eminently marketable brand name, not unlike a certain mousy outfit known for its wholesome image. "In the movie business, it used to be that names meant something. Only Disney retains that now--that assurance of a kind of polished, dependable entertainment," says Narnia and Worms producer Mark Johnson. "But Walden is becoming that kind of brand." Adds Granat with a laugh: "I know it sounds boring. In fact, we often refer to ourselves as the King of the Nerds. But we're really serious about this."
Walden's name, as you might suspect, comes from Walden Pond, made famous by naturalist and "live life deliberately" philosopher Henry David Thoreau. During his film-student days at Tufts University, Granat often visited the Concord, Mass., pond with his roommate and Walden cofounder Micheal Flaherty, who, prior to making movies, worked as a political speechwriter. After Granat's living-room epiphany, the two friends got to talking during Flaherty's wedding about a Big Idea: a movie company that would focus on adapting children's books, which in turn would be leveraged to create educational programs (study guides, library exhibits, author reading tours, etc.). "We talked about how, in many respects, there didn't seem to be any relevancy between the world of the classroom and the world of pop culture," says Granat, who in conversation strikes a unique mix of socially conscious idealism and old-fashioned movie- mogul ambition. "It seemed in the movie world of 2000, there was nothing that the whole family could go to."
The next thing the two friends did was hunt for start-up money. This proved more difficult than they thought it would. "All of the venture capitalists really liked Cary, but not his idea," recalls Flaherty. "When we would visit them, they would say, 'We all want to change the world. Good luck with that. But...if you want another genre filmmaking company like Dimension, let us know.' The coolest part of this whole thing for me, as Cary's friend, has been watching him stick with it."
Ultimately, Granat and Flaherty found a kindred-but-far-more- wealthy spirit in Anschutz, whose diverse holdings include Qwest Communications and Regal Entertainment, the country's largest theater chain. According to an oft-quoted 2004 speech explaining his foray into filmmaking, the billionaire had been "cursing the darkness" of Hollywood for years before deciding to put his money where his mouth was. The press-wary Anschutz (he hasn't granted an interview in more than 30 years) saw Walden as a nice companion to his other, older-skewing film label, Crusader Entertainment (since renamed Bristol Bay Productions, which financed 2004's Ray). After launching with two successful IMAX films-- Pulse: A Stomp Odyssey and James Cameron's Ghosts of the Abyss --Walden hit it big in 2003 with the critically lauded, $67 million-grossing Holes. The award- winning book by Louis Sachar came to Walden's attention as a result of one of its more inspired moves: cultivating relationships with librarians and educators and asking them what kinds of films families want to see. "We made Holes, " says Granat, "because a fourth-grade teacher got her kids, as a persuasive-writing assignment, to write us letters asking us to do it. And we did it."
With their very next movie, however, they almost blew it. Around the World in 80 Days, starring Jackie Chan, was a pricey, quasi- faithful 2004 take on the Jules Verne book that flopped with audiences and critics. But Walden regrouped and rebounded, first with Winn-Dixie, then another Cameron 3-D IMAX opus, Aliens of the Deep, and finally Narnia, a franchise property the company had targeted and pursued since its earliest days. With Narnia --and Walden's overt courting of the same Christian audience that made The Passion of the Christ a box office phenomenon--came the chatter that Walden was a means for fulfilling Anschutz's Christian agenda. "We've never had a conversation about religion with him. Period," says David Weil, chief executive officer for the Anschutz Film Group. "We all come from different religious backgrounds here. We all believe in a family values approach to positive messages--but religious orientation doesn't factor into it."
Filmmakers who work for Walden say the company is surprisingly-- and refreshingly--hands-off. "They are not very keen on fart jokes, dirty words, and unintelligent, cheap solutions. Fortunately, neither am I," says Rugrats co-creator Gabor Csupo, who's currently directing Walden's adaptation of Katherine Paterson's trip-into- fantasyland Bridge to Terabithia. If there's another big no-no on Walden's morals compass, it's cynicism. In Journey to the Center of the Earth, Verne's novel has been refashioned into a father-son bonding story, in which Dad becomes convinced that Verne's book is an actual guidebook into the earth's core--and he's right. "One of the main reasons I left Dimension was because we were making cynical films," says Granat. "That's why those films worked, because they really hit that chord. Walden is the opposite."
Looking to the future, Walden execs want to shore up control of the company's destiny. They recently inked a deal with Penguin Young Readers Group, through which they intend to develop future movie properties. (The upcoming Natalie Portman--Dustin Hoffman starrer Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, for example, will first reach the audience in a series of brand-establishing children's books.) Moreover, Walden is likely to begin distributing its own movies by the end of the decade, as opposed to its current practice of releasing its product through other studios. "Like everything, we're going through the education process now, talking with our audience on how they would want to see that done differently," says Granat. "But the answer is yes, you'll see us take that next step."
At the moment, Granat is content with the moves he's already made. His family too is very happy with his life change. "My wife is really proud of me, and so is my daughter," says Granat. "I have no problem with her seeing the films I make now. She even sits with me and watches dailies. Her notes are very good."
Back to 'Narnia' From the very beginning, Walden execs saw the seven-book series Chronicles of Narnia as the cornerstone upon which to build their company. Here are Walden's plans for bringing the rest of the franchise to the screen:
Prince Caspian The follow-up to Wardrobe, Prince Caspian is the only other book to feature all four Pevensie kids. The script is currently being written, and producer Mark Johnson admits adapting the slender Caspian "is proving tougher than Wardrobe." Granat adds that the movie may be bumped from 2007 to Christmas 2008 due to daunting effects demands.
The Voyage of the 'Dawn Treader'; The Silver Chair Caspian will be followed by Treader, in which Edmund and Lucy help King Caspian locate the seven banished lords of Narnia. Walden plans to use Caspian, Treader, and The Silver Chair to create an interlocking trilogy that will be shot in that order.
The Magician's Nephew; The Horse and His Boy; The Last Battle Chronologically speaking, Nephew comes before Wardrobe, and Horse comes after, while the apocalyptic, Aslan--vs.--anti-Christian Aslan Battle caps the series. The most likely of the three to be made first is Nephew, which explains how the Professor came to own that wardrobe.
