Producer Robert Chandler’s animated “The Canterville Ghost” arrives this week, the climax of a 10-year struggle to resurrect Oscar Wilde’s 300-year-old Sir Simon de Canterville for the big screen.

It’s the Roaring Twenties and Sir Simon (voiced by Wilde aficionado Stephen Fry) has long been haunting the grand Canterville estate — until he meets his match in the brash Americans.

“One of the themes of ‘The Canterville Ghost’ is modernity versus the older, classical values and that’s a sort of sliding collision that’s always happening,” Chandler, who also co-directs, said in a Zoom interview from London.

“In our film you’ve got the Bostonian American family coming in to buy this big, old, dusty English country house and colliding head on with Simon and his 17th century culture.

“The Bostonians are bringing electricity, a motor car and modern ways of thinking. That theme of modernity and the value it has, is always a good thing.

“There’s the eldest daughter Virginia (Emily Carey of “House of the Dragon”), a very modern woman who challenges the age-old assumptions of Sir Simon and the English people she meets. She’s a woman in trousers who rides a horse the way men ride horses. A woman who keeps up with the boys when she pulls out her sword!

“Yes, it’s set in that period but the themes are pretty universal.”

Wilde’s 1887 short story has been adapted often, if always in live action. Partly because it’s an ideal vehicle for older actors — Oscar-winner Charles Laughton starred in a classic 1944 Hollywood version, “Star Trek” and X-Men veteran Patrick Stewart led a TV version.

“It’s a universal character, who has a certain set of values that are challenged. Therefore, he becomes a character you can explore in different ways,” Chandler said. “The way the film looks and feels is quite important. Our animated version lets us do something quite spectacular at the end, in the garden when Simon (Freddie Highmore) and Virginia confront the Grim Reaper (Hugh Laurie).”

Now that his dream project is here, was it worth the immense struggle to get it done?

“Yes! it’s completely worth it. I’m very happy. Making any film brings its hardships and heartache; compromises have to be made.

“And then you see things that you hadn’t expected — and they’re just wonderful. The way an artist interprets something, the way a voice brings a character to life.

“And when you see what people are responding to, the reward is worth it. I believe in cinema as a vital force of good in the world.”

“The Canterville Ghost” opens Friday

Check out the full interview here

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