The Chronicles of Narnia
The Cast
- Peter ... William Moseley
- Susan ... Anna Popplewell
- Edmund ... Skandar Keynes
- Lucy ... Georgie Henley
- Professor Digory Kirke ... Jim Broadbent
- Mrs. McCready ... Elizabeth Hawthorne
- The Pevensie family matriarch ... Judy McIntosh
- Aslan (voice) ... Liam Neeson
- Mr Tumnus ... James McAvoy
- The White Witch ... Tilda Swinton
- Mr. Beaver ... Ray Winstone
- Mrs. Beaver ... Dawn French
- Sleigh-driver, Ginarrbrik ... Kiran Shah
- Oreius, the Centaur ... Patrick Kake
- The Fox ... Rupert Everett
- Father Christmas ... James Cosmo
- General Otman, Minotaur ... Shane Rangi
- A Satyr ... Stephen Ure
The Crew
- Director ... Andrew Adamson
- Producer ... Mark Johnson, Douglas Gresham
- Screenwriters ... Christoper Markus, Ann Peacock, Stephen McFeely
- Production Design ... Roger Ford
- SFX ... Richard Taylor (Weta Workshops)
- Digital FX ... Rhythm and Hues, Sony Imageworks
- Concept Art ... Rowan Cassidy
- Composer ... Harry Gregson-Williams
- Stunts ... Sala Baker
Summary
Walden Media has taken on the project of turning C. S. Lewis's beloved childrens books, the Narnia Chronicles, into a series of films. They have the support of Disney, who are co-financing and distributing the films. The release date for the first film is December 9, 2005 in the US. Release dates in other Western countries seem to follow on closely within the month of December, as far as we can see at present.
The director is Andrew Adamson, most famous to date for his work on the direction and screenplays of Shrek and Shrek 2.
The Pevensie children are played by four British child actors.
Adamson is executive producer; one of the co-producers is Douglas Gresham, stepson of C. S Lewis. This would argue that the films will be made with respect for Lewis' words and probably also Lewis' Christian beliefs. Gresham is himself a strong Christian.
Digital effects are being handled by Sony Imageworks and Rhythm&Hues
The first film to be shot is The Chronicles of Narnia: Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, which started filming in the last weeks of June, 2004. Most principal photography is taking place in and around Auckland, New Zealand - specifically West Auckland. Some of West Aucklands industrial areas hide the magical sets to Narnia. Outdoors, the Auckland region provides the film makers with green fields, gentle hills and the thick woods known locally as the bush. This landscape provides a pleasant generic countryside that can easily be adapted to look like England, as we saw with Hobbiton in The Lord of the Rings. Viewers of the TV series Xena and Hercules will have seen the same landscapes pressed into service as Ancient Greece. Other locations will also be used - New Zealands most English-looking city, Christchurch, and Flock Hill Station, or at least according to the locals. Flock Hill is set in some of the wild country closer to the Southern Alps. Other locations mentioned in recent news reports include the Cave Stream Scenic Reserve and Broken River . Other location shooting is taking place in Czechoslovakia.
Meanwhile, Disney has started planning to make at least a second Narnia film, Prince Caspian. Currently they have a writer working on a script for it. However theyre not committed to making the film until they see how much success they have with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
Whether they will make one film for every book of the Narnia series isn't certain. Adamson has talked about using events and scenes from other Narnia books to fill out the first film with more detail and depth. So it looks very possible that a number of films will be made centring on the most popular Narnia books, but using characters and events from all the books to give as much richness as possible to the films.
LOTR fans will recognise many of the LOTR family in Narnia. Richard Taylor and his Weta workshops are building a lot of the armour, prosthetics, sets and costumes. Adamson and Peter Jackson know each other - Adamson helped out on one of Jackson's films, pre-LOTR. Some of the little people who worked as hobbit stunt doubles are acting as dwarfs in this movie, and a number of Kiwi actors and stuntmen have moved out of Middle-earth and into Narnia.
