Posts Tagged ‘Perry Moore’

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader – Press Release and Casting News

Monday, July 27th, 2009

“The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader,” the third in the epic series of films based on the bestselling books by C.S. Lewis, will begin principal photography on location in Queensland, Australia, today – July 27, 2009. The production, a joint venture between Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation and Walden Media, continues the franchise which commenced with

The spectacular, Oscar®-winning 2005 release, “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” and its 2008 follow-up, “Prince Caspian,” whose combined global box office gross tops $1.2 billion.

(more…)

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Correction: Dawn Treader Filming Started on July 22?

Friday, July 24th, 2009

No sooner did producer Perry Moore say that Principal Photography started next week, than we got reports to the contrary from a number of people.  I haven’t been online in a few hours, though, so I wasn’t able to catch them until just now.

Director Michael Apted’s personal assistant Cort Kristensen says that filming started on July 22.  They’ve got the first shot of the movie’s schedule, though there is no word on what that shot is, or where it will fit in the movie.

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A Narnia Geek’s Dream Come True

Tuesday, December 6th, 2005

Perry Moore, a lifelong sci-fi and fantasy fanboy, has always wanted to see his favorite book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, made into a movie. Now it is… and he’s the executive producer.

Perry Moore is the ultimate geek, and he readily admits it. Thirty-four years old, he still goes to the comic book store every Wednesday to check out the new releases. He grew up loving fantasy and sci-fi, and he’s never grown out of it.

What kicked it all off was this little book called The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which his mom put in his hands when he was 7 years old. Moore never grew out of it, and in many ways, never grew up. He still approaches that book… his favorite of all-time… with childlike wonder.

So imagine his thoughts when, at the age of 29, he was appointed this daunting task: Convince the C.S. Lewis Company (i.e., the writer’s estate) to sign over the rights to the Chronicles of Narnia… including The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe… to turn the beloved classics into a series of movies.

Moore, then an executive with Walden Media, made his pitch, the Lewis folks were convinced, and the deal was done. Now, five years later, Moore’s lifelong dream comes true as The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe… made by Walden and distributed by Disney… releases to theaters worldwide this Friday. And when the credits roll, Perry Moore’s name will be near the top of the list… as Executive Producer.

Moore, now 34, has chronicled the making of the film in a new book with a mouthful of a title: The Official Illustrated Movie Companion for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (HarperSanFrancisco). It’s an attractive coffee-table tome for any Narnia fan… of the book or the movie. But it’s more than just a bunch of pretty pictures; it’s also well written (Moore was an English lit major at the University of Virginia) and full of interesting behind-the-scenes info and insights… especially into the four kids who play the Pevensie children in the movie.

We chatted with Moore a few days ago about the movie companion book and, of course, the film itself. Moore’s enthusiasm was palpable. He sounded like a fanboy gushing about his favorite thing in the world… which, of course, is exactly what he was doing. “This movie,” he said, “exceeds even my wildest dreams.”

[Read the interview at Christianity Today]

World of Narnia Celebration at Barnes and Noble in New York

Friday, November 18th, 2005

On Thursday evening at Barnes and Noble’s Union Square Bookstore, children, parents and fans were be the first to experience the unprecedented launch and enter the magical “World of Narnia” to see the entire book program, with some images from the film and were able to interact with the cast. James McAvoy read from THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE and other cast members were on hand for a Q&A with the audience.

In attendance were, from the cast – James McAvoy, Tilda Swinton, Anna Popplewell, William Moseley, Georgie Henley and executive producer/author Perry Moore.

The Chronicles of Making ‘Narnia’ a Film

Tuesday, November 8th, 2005

At the beginning of 2001, Perry Moore embarked on a quest. Moore, an executive with an untested movie company called Walden Media, dispatched an impassioned letter to the chief executive of C.S. Lewis Co., seeking movie rights to the “Chronicles of Narnia” fantasy novels.

He vowed that Walden would be able to turn “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” the first book published in the series, into a movie. Over the previous seven years, in a time before “The Lord of the Rings” and “Harry Potter” had shown the profit potential in family-friendly sorcery epics, every major studio in town had turned down the project, some even twice.

Almost five years later, Moore’s promise will be kept, thanks to an unlikely cast of collaborators, including a former Tasmanian sheep farmer, a media-shy billionaire disgusted with much of Hollywood’s cinematic fare, and Walt Disney.

The march of technological progress and the United States’s shifting social currents have played their roles in bringing this saga to a resolution. But fittingly for a book and series in which Christian themes of sacrifice and resurrection are more than mere subtext, less quantifiable factors also featured prominently.

“This was a three-way leap of faith, frankly,” Dick Cook, chairman of Walt Disney Studios, said.

[International Herald Tribune for the rest]

Prince Caspian Script Nearly Ready

Friday, October 28th, 2005

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

Meet Michael Madsen, the Voice of Maugrim

Thursday, October 27th, 2005

In Perry Moore’s book The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: The Official Illustrated Movie Companion, the author interviews Director Andrew Adamson about the cast of the film, and reveals, for the first time anywhere, the voice of Maugrim (aka Fenris Ulf):

Perry Moore: Tell us about Michael Madsen as Maugrim, the Wolf Captain of the White Witch’s secret police.

Andrew Adamson: Michael was a late addition. Our producer, Mark Johnson, brought up Michael because he’d worked with him before. I don’t know why he hadn’t occurred to us earlier. Again, Mark just called him up and said, “I’m doing this film, are you interested?” and he said, “Sure,” and showed up and did it. He was great. He has this fantastic voice, a good bad guy. He was really funny. I started showing him some tapes and he’s like, “I get it, I’m a wolf.”

More about the book:

See how C. S. Lewis’s amazing land of Narnia was brought to the big screen in the major motion picture The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Go behind the scenes and discover how the magic was made!

Included inside are: never-before-seen images from the movie; exclusive behind-the-scenes stories; an in-depth discussion with director Andrew Adamson; actor profiles and interviews; Anna’s Journal — an on-the-set diary from actress Anna Popplewell, who portrays Susan Pevensie; and reflections and stories from those who meticulously created the costumes, armor, weapons, creatures, sets, beasts, and special effects.

ISBN: 0060827874; Imprint: HarperSanFrancisco; On Sale: 10/25/2005; Format: Trade PB; Trimsize: 8 1/2 x 10 7/8; Pages: 240; $19.95; $26.95(CAN)

Order from Amazon.com
Our Michael Madsen page
Our Maugrim page

The Official Illustrated Movie Companion

Tuesday, October 25th, 2005

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
The Official Illustrated Movie Companion
by Perry Moore

See how C. S. Lewis’s amazing land of Narnia was brought to the big screen in the major motion picture The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Go behind the scenes and discover how the magic was made!

Included inside are: never-before-seen images from the movie; exclusive behind-the-scenes stories; an in-depth discussion with director Andrew Adamson; actor profiles and interviews; Anna’s Journal — an on-the-set diary from actress Anna Popplewell, who portrays Susan Pevensie; and reflections and stories from those who meticulously created the costumes, armor, weapons, creatures, sets, beasts, and special effects.

ISBN: 0060827874; Imprint: HarperSanFrancisco; On Sale: 10/25/2005; Format: Trade PB; Trimsize: 8 1/2 x 10 7/8; Pages: 240; $19.95; $26.95(CAN)

Order from Amazon.com

Perry Moore Video Interview on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Tuesday, October 18th, 2005

Executive Producer Perry Moore meets with independentfilm.com to discuss his new movie from Walt Disney Pictures and Walden Media based on the book by C.S. Lewis. Opens December 9th, 2005. (Total Running Time: 7:55sec, 8Mb)

See the video at IndependentFilm.com

Perry Moore is also the author of the Official Movie Companion. The book releases on October 25 and is on pre-order special at Amazon.com for $13.57. Pre-Order it from Amazon.com.

Chud.com Narnia Coverage – Part 1: Producer Perry Moore Interview

Friday, August 12th, 2005

Producer Perry Moore wasn’t quite so psyched, but he was obviously pleased. He knows he’s in the final stretch for this film, and he obviously knew that he was among friends at a place like Comic Con. In this first part of my coverage of Narnia at Comic Con, we’ll focus on Moore. Future installments will feature the FX folks, including Howard Berger and Weta’s Richard Taylor.

Moore sat at our roundtable and started off by introducing himself…

Moore: I’m the guy who went after the rights about five years ago and convinced the CS Lewis estate and the studio to take it on. They also asked me to write the official making of the movie book, and I had the good sense to let each of the gentlemen in this room [the heads of the FX departments] write their own chapter about what they do because I feel the fans deserve a bit more. Usually a journalist gets to go down to the set for two weeks and they get to observe and they do the best with what they have, so it was special to write that book.

Q: How faithful is the film?

Moore: I’ll just preface this by saying I’m not a Hollywood guy. I live in New York, I am actually a big comic book guy. I go to the store every Wednesday. When I was a kid I used to save my allowance and do it, and people would tell my mom, “Why do you let him read that garbage?” I would read every fantasy book I could get my hands on and I just went to the estate and said, let us do this faithful and let us do this right. Thankfully they entrusted us to do it. Now that I’ve seen the movie I feel like not only have we done that, I’m shocked at just how powerful the story itself is. This is one of those movies that are going to surprise people because the artisanship is obviously impeccable on every level from costumes to weapons to visual effects, but the heart behind it, the real characters and the emotions – I don’t think people will be ready for this in a big budget movie because I think Hollywood has largely forgotten it in movie making.

Q: What were the kids like?

Moore: The kids are so special in this movie. They’re exceptional. We spent years looking for these kids. The other studios that had the material wanted to modernize it – put it in LA after the earthquakes, and exchange Turkish Delight for hot dogs and pizza! If you’re a fan – this is what got me going to the estate to say we’ve got to do this right. Part of what we wanted to do right was to find real kids from the UK. I had done a tiny little movie called I Am David in the UK which had a ten year old boy. I used a casting director named Pippa Hall, who only does UK children. She did a movie called Billy Elliot. I don’t know if you saw that movie but there’s no sort of Star Search, gee aren’t I cute actor kind of kid in that movie. They’re real kids from the schools. We spent two years looking at these kids and we see over four thousand kids. Our idea, and Andrew’s credo for the whole movie was “Fantasy has to be real.” So four thousand kids later we chose four kids who are pretty close to the real kids in the movie.

Q: The book is Christian allegory -

Moore: He calls it supposition, by the way. I now know more than what any human could possibly know casabout what CS Lewis thought about anything in that regard.

Read the rest at Chud, linked to above.