Jesus to Hollywood by Way of Charles Dickens

Door Jam: Jan. 14, 2025

The Door Jam is a place to squeeze in relevant articles written about C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, their work, adaptations of their fantasy worlds, news from other franchises, and interesting articles. Unless otherwise stated, I’m not necessarily endorsing (or criticizing) any of these but merely sharing them with you.

This week’s top story looks at an upcoming animated movie about the life of Jesus through an interesting story by Charles Dickens.

Top Story

Charles Dickens wrote some of the most famous works in the English language: Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, and A Christmas Carol. He became the celebrity of his day, publishing novels in weekly or monthly installments. He demanded one work, however, never be published until after his last child died.

While writing David Copperfield, he also wrote a book for his children about Jesus that he read aloud every Christmas, The Life of Our Lord. He told his sister-in-law that no one in the family should ever “even hand the manuscript, or a copy of it, to anyone to take out of the house.”

Dickens’ last son died in 1933. His will allowed the work to be shared if the majority of living family members approved. This did so and The Life of Our Lord was first published in 1934, almost 100 years after Dickens wrote it and 64 years after he died.

A play adaptation was first performed in 2015. Now, The King of Kings, an animated movie loosely based on the book will be released on April 11 this year with major names as voice actors, including Kenneth Branagh, Uma Thurman, Mark Hamil, Pierce Brosnan, Forest Whitaker, Ben Kingsley, and Oscar Isaac.

I’ll be honest. The names attached to the project have me interested, but the animation style seems … off. It doesn’t match the story and feels dated. That’s just my perspective from the trailer, so I could definitely be wrong.

Not Safe But Good

C.S. Lewis quote of the week

Every poet and musician and artist, but for Grace, is drawn away from the love of the thing he tells, to the love of the telling till, down in Deep Hell, they cannot be interested in God at all but only in what they say about Him

The Great Divorce

Tumnus’ bookshelf

A book by or about C.S. Lewis

Since I used it for the quote this week, why don’t I go ahead and recommend it. Not enough people have read The Great Divorce and recognize its greatness. If you haven’t made it to this work on your reading of Lewis, move it up your list.

From the archives

An article published previously at The Wardrobe Door

Below for paid subscribers are a high school student’s reflections on Narnia, a Narnia-inspired computer, a Tolkien typo on The Antique Roadshow, how suffering contributed to his writing, news on upcoming Star Wars and Marvel movies, and more.