Narnia Fan ‘heney’ has attended one of the Narnia Event Previews put on by NarniaResources.com. He posted the following in the forum:

I’m sure that most of you have read the reports from these preview screenings that have been happening: Cinematical.com

I attended one last night and I must say that most of the descriptions were fairly good, but just a little vague, which is understandable because whose going to be able to remeber all the images you are bombarded with when watching this ten minute preview. Anyway I went last night, and wanted to add something to these reports that no one seems to have mentioned yet. The ten minute segment was a lot like an extended edition of the latest trailer, and where I was most impressed was with the acting of the cg animals. Mr. Beaver looked and acted superbly, but Aslan really shined. One scene gave me the chills.

SPOILER WARNING!:

As Aslan approached the stone table, he was being mocked as he was in the trailer, and a creature is harassing him with a spear. Aslan glances over in a kind of “Just back off and let me do this thing.” type of manner and subtly growls at the creature, who immediately backs off. It was perfect. You could tell that Aslan was saddened, yet with one roar, or one swipe of his paw he could’ve ended it all. It was amazing.

END SPOILER.

Ok so I wanted to put myself out there for questions about what was shown, theres no reason for me to give you a shot by shot, because many people have already attempted that, but if you’ve got questions about what others have said than please ask away, I’ll do my best.

Ask some questions here

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Aslan is on the move — this time, propelled by the mighty Disney marketing machine and the Christian entertainment industry.

The lion Aslan is the focus of “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe,” a Disney flick based on the fantasy novels of C.S. Lewis. When he’s on the move, expectations rise in the world of Narnia, which lies behind the doors of an enchanted wardrobe. Likewise, the Christian entertainment industry is expecting the movie, which will be released Dec. 9, to be a combination of “The Passion of the Christ” and “The Lord of the Rings,” with a little Disney magic thrown in. Publishers are churning out books, video games and all of the paraphernalia that you’d associate with a Disney release.

Great expectations explain why so many top artists were eager to create “Music Inspired By ‘The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.’ ” Jars of Clay, Steven Curtis Chapman, Kutless, Jeremy Camp and the David Crowder Band are just a few who contributed their talents to the project.

“I love C.S. Lewis,” worship leader David Crowder said. “Narnia is just such a lovely tale and the movie looks to be something pretty astounding visually and [it’s] extremely exciting to have such a beautiful story told to such a potentially broad audience.”

In the Narnia novels, Lewis tells the story of salvation and explains underlying concepts through images and allegory. The characters struggle with faith — and sometimes allow temptation to overwhelm them.

Chapman said that although he had read many of Lewis’ works on Christian belief, he had never read the Narnia books before he was approached about the project. Upon reading the novels, he was impressed by “seeing how brilliantly C.S. Lewis was able to tell the greatest story ever told, the coming of God’s savior to the world. And to see how incredibly creative [he was]. … Anyone, even a child, can grasp the elements of the story.”

[More at Stars and Stripes]
[More about the Soundtracks]

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The Pevensie children couldn’t have been better cast. William Moseley plays Peter, who must lead an army. Anna Popplewell plays cautious Susan. Skandar Keynes is devious Edmund. And Georgie Henley is openhearted little Lucy. On the set in New Zealand, the cast gave one of its first interviews to NEWSWEEK’s Jeff Giles.

ANNA POPPLEWELL, 16: Georgie’s and my costumes have all this long, authentic 1940s underwear. One day we were hot and complaining, and I said, “Oh, I’ve got so much underwear on!” Skandar had this look on his face like he was not comfortable.
GEORGIE HENLEY, 10: It was a very uncomfortable conversation.
WILLIAM MOSELEY, 18: Skandar has girls’ disease, which is a, um, mild form of hating all women.
SKANDAR KEYNES, 14: No, I don’t! Just people who are older and scarier.
ANNA: Anyway, ever since, we’ve teased Skandar about his phobia of women’s underwear. So for his birthday we chose the pinkest, tackiest, smallest G-string we could find and wrapped it in pink tissue paper.
WILLIAM: The look on his face was the same look that the White Witch uses to turn creatures into stone.

When did you first read the “Narnia” books?
ANNA: I was 7 when I read them.
SKANDAR: I was 8.
GEORGIE: I was 6.
ANNA: Georgie’s very smart.
WILLIAM: Georgie’s a very good reader. One of the assistant directors will come up and say, “OK, school time, everyone,” and Skandar and I will roll our eyes. And the girls will be like…
ANNA and GEORGIE: “Yaaaaaaay!”[Laughter]

[More at Newsweek]

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Newsweek was given an exclusive look at a rough cut of the upcoming film version of C. S. Lewis’s classic fantasy, “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” a PG-rated movie about, and for, families that features a pitched battle with children, Minotaurs, polar bears and talking wolves, but no bloodshed. But, as Senior Editor Jeff Giles reports in the November 7 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, October 31), “Narnia” has already been the subject of a strange debate online and in newspapers. Will the movie be too religious for a wide audience? Might it not be religious enough for Lewis’s Christian fans? The speculation is understandable, partly because the climax of the tale can be read as an allegory for Jesus’ death and resurrection.

The movie opens with a sequence just hinted at in the novel: a swarm of German bombers attack London during World War II, and Mrs. Pevensie packs her children off for the countryside to live under the benign neglect of a mysterious professor (Jim Broadbent). Soon Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy tumble through the wardrobe into Narnia, where it has long been prophesied that two daughters of Eve and two sons of Adam would free Narnia from Jadis’s rule and help the noble lion Aslan usher in spring, at the expense of his own death and rebirth. Aslan (voiced by Liam Neeson) is a magnificent bit of computer animation, whether or not you think he’s Jesus, Giles reports.

Director Andrew Adamson was not interested in replicating the often unsettling imagery of “The Lord of the Rings.” The gentleness of his movie may frustrate some bloodthirsty teenage boys but should appeal to previously disenfranchised folks interested in a more childlike, less operatic style of fantasy, Giles reports.

While no one will jinx the endeavor by making box-office predictions, one source believes that if this first “Narnia” movie makes $200 million, another installment, based on “Prince Caspian,” will hit the ground running. Adamson tells Newsweek he’s too exhausted to imagine ever directing again, but, asked if he could really let the Pevensie children go — let alone the lovely kids who play them so winningly — he laughs and shakes his head. “That’s what’s gonna suck me in,” he says.

[More at Newsweek]

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Fifty years ago, celebrated author and Christian apologist C. S. Lewis completed what would eventually become a classic of children’s literature: The Chronicles of Narnia. Originally conceived as a trilogy of novellas, the series began with the publication of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and apocalyptically culminated, after a total of seven volumes had been published, in The Last Battle.

Now, after countless dramatic adaptations, radio plays, musicals and television productions of the Chronicles, Walden Media and Disney are bringing Narnia to the big screen in what has already proven to be the most aggressive promotional campaign in history. What’s all the fuss about?

Most champions of the Chronicles laud the series for its allegorical retelling of the Gospel. The protector of Narnia, that Great Lion Aslan, is a clear parallel to the Christ we find in Scripture.

But the success of the Chronicles of Narnia is not only due to its spiritual appeal. If the tales did not work first as literature, they would have remained only a footnote to publishing history.

Two Roads through Narnia makes the case that the Chronicles are best appreciated by understanding the books from both literary and spiritual standpoints. But rather than muddy the waters by trying to do both at the same time – or by trying to synthesize seven individual stories into a single comprehensive thesis – the essays in this volume analyze each individual story first as literature, then for spiritual symbolism.

Seven books. Each appreciated as art should be: for the significance of its craft, and for the value of its meaning.

Hollywood Jesus Senior Editor Greg Wright has also assembled a team of essayists – Kathy Bledsoe, George Rosok and Jenn Wright – who are not afraid to point out weaknesses in the Chronicles where they exist. This introduction to the seven tales of Narnia will both challenge and satisfy those on the journey through Narnia.

Order Two Roads through Narnia
Order from Amazon

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The game releases November 15th on all consoles, here are twenty new screenshots from our friends at Buena Vista Games!

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The young stars of the eagerly awaited Christmas blockbuster The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe are already getting ready for further adventures in Narnia. William Moseley, Anna Popplewell, Skandar Keynes and Georgie Henley – who play the siblings Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy in C.S. Lewis’s mammoth fantasy tale – are on stand-by to be in the film Prince Caspian, one of the seven books in Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia series.

“We’ve got a script nearly ready, but The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe has to come out and do well first before we get the green light,” Perry Moore, the film’s executive producer, told me.

Moore, who has written the lavish illustrated companion book about the making of the picture, added that Prince Caspian was the next logical choice because it features all four of the children.

“We want the kids back before they get too old to do it again,” he said of the young actors, who all live in Britain and were chosen during a two-year search in which 4,000 children were auditioned. “In Prince Caspian the story is set a year later and they’re called back to Narnia in another crisis,” said Moore, who works for Walden Media, the studio behind the movie.

Prince Caspian would, like The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, shoot on location in New Zealand using the Weta Workshop special effects company where The Lord of the Rings trilogy and the forthcoming King Kong were filmed. It was Moore who spent several years pursuing the rights to the collection of seven books.

Daily Mail

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The residents of Narnia live in an enchanted land of hope populated with talking bears, dwarfs, and fauns. But in 2001, The Chronicles of Narnia, the much-beloved seven-book series written by British author C.S. Lewis, was a lost cause to Hollywood studio executives.

Even as blockbuster hopefuls like Harry Potter, X-Men, and The Lord of the Rings were coming to life, Paramount Pictures dropped Narnia after five years of false starts and rising budgets. “It was a great project that couldn’t seem to get going,” recalls David Weil, CEO of Anschutz Film Group, the family-friendly movie unit owned by Denver billionaire Phil Anschutz that picked it up from Paramount. Anschutz, a onetime Sunday school teacher, was drawn by Narnia’s spiritual underpinnings. Holed-up in New York’s Four Seasons Hotel after months of negotiating, Weil made an offer to C.S. Lewis’ stepson that he couldn’t refuse. “We laid out a 15-year plan to create a franchise out of The Chronicles of Narnia,” recalls Weil, “and wouldn’t let him out until he agreed.”

When The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe hits theaters on Dec. 9, it will represent Hollywood’s latest venture — and one of its most costly yet — to create a franchise, which is, after all, the celluloid Holy Grail. The stakes are enormous not just for Anschutz but also for Walt Disney Co., the film’s distributor, which is paying half its production costs. “It was an expensive bet,” says Disney studio Chairman Richard Cook, who was first approached about the project by Anschutz executives two years ago. “But with books that have as many as 90 million readers, it was a bet worth taking.”

Business Week

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SoundtrackNet has visited a few scoring sessions for the adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. The film was directed by Andrew Adamson and produced by Oscar-winning producer Mark Johnson. The music for the fantasy epic is being written by Harry Gregson-Williams, whose previous works include Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven and music for Shrek 1 and 2. From the article:

Narnia has over 125 minutes of score, and multiple scoring sessions for Narnia were spread out from late September through late October. There is still at least one more scoring session left to come, and then the score will be mixed into the final dub of the film.

Two editions of the soundtrack will come out from Walt Disney Records on December 13, one of which is a “Special Edition” release that includes a bonus DVD featuring interviews and more.

Director Andrew Adamson and composer Harry Gregson-Williams

For the rest of the pictures (a lot of them) and the article, visit SoundtrackNet

Thanks to Dan from SoundtrackNet for alerting us to this story!

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Disney-MGM Studios in Orlando will open a new attraction in December called Journey Into Narnia: Creating The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.

The walk-through attraction will offer visitors a peek at the props and some of the story line from the Walt Disney Pictures and Walden Media’s film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

The movie, based on the C.S. Lewis book, premieres nationwide in theaters on Dec. 9 and the attraction will open the same day, Disney spokesman Charles Stovall said.

Paul Martin, 24, who runs [NarniaFans.com] from his home in Grand Rapids, Mich., said he’s going to see the attraction as well as the movie, and will gladly make a special trip.

“It sounds really cool,” said Martin, a lifelong fan of the Chronicles of Narnia.

Journey Into Narnia is the first new attraction at Disney-MGM Studios since the Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show debuted in May as part of the Happiest Celebration on Earth marketing campaign at Disney parks worldwide.

In the new attraction, which will take 10 to 15 minutes to walk through, guests will enter the frozen world of Narnia, Stovall said, and see behind-the-scenes moviemaking magic in the epic film.

Visitors will enter through a giant wardrobe, just as the children do in the movie version of Lewis’ classic, and will exit through a gallery of elaborate creatures, costumes and props from the movie.

The attraction is going into the former Haunted Mansion movie set on Soundstage 4 on Mickey Avenue. That attraction, based on the 2003 Eddie Murphy movie, closed in 2004 and was recently used for special events, including the Happiest Celebration media gathering this year.

Florida Education Commissioner John Winn is scheduled to be at Disney-MGM Studios today, along with four young actors from the film and a group of elementary school students, to help announce plans for the attraction and to promote a statewide children’s literacy program.

Our previous story on the attraction

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