The Chronicles of Narnia (film series)

The Chronicles of Narnia is a series of epic fantasy films from Walden Media based on the series of novels, The Chronicles of Narnia written by C. S. Lewis in the 1950s. The first installment, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, was released on December 9, 2005, while the second, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, was released on May 16, 2008; these first two films were directed by Andrew Adamson, produced by Mark Johnson, and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. The third installment, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, will be directed by Michael Apted, and co-produced and distributed by 20th Century Fox. It is scheduled to be released in theaters in the United States and United Kingdom on December 10, 2010, and in Digital 3D in select cinemas. The first official trailer for the film was released with Toy Story 3 on June 18, 2010. It was released online on June 17, 2010. A second trailer was released online on August 3, 2010. It will also be available on Diary of a Wimpy Kid's DVD release.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a 2005 epic fantasy adventure film directed by Andrew Adamson and based on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the first published and second chronological novel in C. S. Lewis's children's epic fantasy series, The Chronicles of Narnia. It was co-produced by Walden Media and Walt Disney Pictures and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. William Moseley, Anna Popplewell, Georgie Henley and Skandar Keynes play Peter, Susan, Lucy and Edmund, four British children evacuated during the Blitz to the countryside, who find a wardrobe that leads to the fantasy world of Narnia. There they ally with the Lion Aslan (voiced by Liam Neeson) against the forces of Jadis, the White Witch (Tilda Swinton).

The film was released on December 9, 2005 in both Europe and North America to positive reviews and was highly successful at the box office. It won the 2005 Academy Award for Best Make Up and various other awards and is the first film in the series of films based on the books. An Extended Edition was released on December 12, 2006 and was only made available on DVD until January 31, 2007 when it was discontinued. It was the best-selling DVD in North America in 2006 taking in $332.7 million that year.

C. S. Lewis’s second venture into Narnia, Prince Caspian, is sandwiched between two popular favorites, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Coming between the formidable creative and allegorical achievement of the former and the bracing, poetic odyssey of the latter, Lewis’s second effort is perhaps something of an awkward middle child.

Thematically, the book follows up the Narnian passion and redemption story with a vision of post-Enlightenment skepticism, in which the very existence of the omnipotent Lion Aslan and of High King Peter and his siblings has been largely forgotten, suppressed or dismissed as a fairy tale. Lewis thus leaps forward 1300 years into Narnia’s future — the first of a series of bold forays exploring the Narnian world in all conceivable directions and dimensions. (Subsequent books journey east by sea to the world’s edge and beyond, north by foot and down to the depths of the earth, on horseback across desert sands of the south, backward in time and westward to Narnia’s Edenic origins, and finally forward in time to the Narnian apocalypse.)