Heaven has been depicted on the big screen before, but never quite like this – as the most beautiful landscape you’ve ever seen, but every blade of grass is so hard it actually hurts your feet to walk on them, and a single leaf so heavy you can’t lift it.
Such is the creative depiction of heaven by C. S. Lewis in The Great Divorce–great fodder for a filmmaker with a rich imagination and a love for the work. And now it appears that the story has found just that.
Beloved Pictures announced Monday that it has secured film rights to the story, and that David L. Cunningham (To End All Wars, Seeker: The Dark Is Rising) will direct. Cunningham, 38, is a Christian and the son of Youth With a Mission co-founders Loren and Darlene Cunningham.
The Great Divorce tells the story of one man’s journey–on a bus!–from the post-apocalyptic wasteland of a grey town to the outskirts of heaven.
“We are tremendously excited to bring one of Lewis’s most profound stories to the screen,” said Beloved Pictures CEO Michael Ludlum. “We believe that this story, much like the Chronicles of Narnia, will resonate with a global audience.”
Beloved is currently seeking investors for the film, which may begin filming sometime in 2010. A release date has not yet been determined.