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


Directed by Andrew Adamson
Produced by Mark Johnson
Phillip Steuer
Written by Ann Peacock
Andrew Adamson
Christopher Markus
Stephen McFeely
Based on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by
C. S. Lewis
Starring William Moseley
Anna Popplewell
Skandar Keynes
Georgie Henley
Liam Neeson
Tilda Swinton
James McAvoy
Jim Broadbent
Ray Winstone
Dawn French
Music by Harry Gregson-Williams
Cinematography Donald McAlpine
Editing by Sim Evan-Jones
Jim May
Studio Walden Media
Distributed by Walt Disney Pictures
Release date(s)
  • December 8, 2005 (United Kingdom)
  • December 9, 2005 (United States)
Running time 143 minutes
Country United States
Language English
German
Budget $180 million
Box office $745,013,115

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 screenplay based on the novel by C. S. Lewis was written by Stephen McFeely and Christopher Markus.
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 Makeup 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.

Plot

During the Battle of Britain, in the suburb of Finchley near London, Great Britain, the Pevensie children, Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy, are endangered by an attack of numerous German Heinkel He 111 bombers. When running to the shelter, Edmund runs back to the house to get a photograph of his father for which Peter scolds him. The next morning, they are evacuated to the country home of Professor Digory Kirke, who is not accustomed to having children in his house, as Ms. Macready, the strict housekeeper, explains.
While the Pevensies are getting used to the house and playing hide-and-seek out of boredom, Lucy discovers a wardrobe and enters a wintry fantasy world called Narnia to her surprise. Lucy shortly encounters and befriends the faun, Mr. Tumnus, who explains about the land she has just entered and invites her back to his home to which she accepts. There, he puts Lucy to sleep by playing a Narnian Lullaby on his flute. However, when she wakes up, Lucy finds Tumnus grieving, and he explains that Jadis, the White Witch, has cursed Narnia, and it has been winter for one hundred years. If a human is ever encountered, they were to be brought to her. Tumnus takes a huge liking to Lucy and cannot bring himself to kidnap her, so he sends her home. When she returns, hardly any time has passed in the normal world, and her siblings do not believe her story since that when they look in the wardrobe, it has a normal wooden back. Peter then scolds Edmund when he jokes about believing Lucy, to which Edmund responds by yelling at Peter and storms out of the room, believing that Peter is trying to be a father figure (presumably showing us that Edmund's bad behavior began when his father was forced to fight in the war).
One night, Edmund follows Lucy into the wardrobe, presumably to tease her about the country he thinks she has made up. However, he enters Narnia as well, and shortly after searching for Lucy, he meets the White Witch who claims to be "The Queen of Narnia" and her dwarf Ginarrbrik. She offers him Turkish Delight as well as the prospect of becoming king and having power over his siblings if he brings them to her house. After she departs, Edmund and Lucy meet again and return; Lucy tells Peter and Susan about the experience, but Edmund lies about it. The Professor talks with Peter and Susan; he does not understand why they do not believe Lucy's story and gives them three possible logical explanations of Lucy's behaviour — madness, dishonesty and sincerity — the others know she is neither mad nor dishonest, so she must be telling the truth. However, they are still not convinced.
While running away from Ms. Macready after accidentally breaking a window while playing cricket, the four siblings retreat to the wardrobe and enter Narnia. There, they apologize to Lucy. They discover Mr. Tumnus has been taken by the Witch's secret police, and meet Mr. and Mrs. Beaver, who tell them about Aslan. According to the beavers, Aslan is on the move to take control of Narnia from the Witch. The four must help Aslan and his supporters; it has been prophesied that if two sons of Adam and two daughters of Eve sit in the four thrones, the White Witch's reign would end.
Edmund sneaks off to visit the Witch, where Mr. Beaver explains the witch's motive and that the siblings now must resort to reaching Aslan to save him. When he arrives at her castle, she is angry that he did not deliver his siblings. The Witch sends wolves to hunt down the children and the beavers, who barely escape with the help of a fox. Edmund is chained in the Witch's dungeon where he meets Tumnus. The Witch demands that Edmund reveal where his siblings are because her police could not find them; Edmund then tells her about Aslan and the witch demands to know where Aslan is. Edmund hesitates when Tumnus claims that Edmund does not know anything and Edmund tells the Witch that he heard no further information regarding Aslan. Seeing that Tumnus is hindering the information, the Witch tells Mr. Tumnus that Edmund betrayed him (by talking about him at Edmund's first visit), then turns Tumnus to stone.
While Peter, Lucy, Susan and the beavers travel to the Stone Table, they see what they believe to be the White Witch chasing after them, so they hide. It is really Father Christmas, a sign that the Witch's reign is ending. Father Christmas gives Lucy a healing cordial and a dagger to defend herself with. Susan, a bow and arrows and a magical horn that will summon help when blown, and Peter a sword and shield.
Pursued by wolves led by Maugrim, the group crosses a thawing river, leaving the Witch unable to reach them. The Witch's wolves who then appear had captured the fox that helped the Pevensies escape. The Witch then demands that the fox reveals the Pevensies destination. After the fox refuses to comply, the Witch is about to turn him to stone when Edmund reveals that the Pevensies are heading to the Stone Table and that Aslan is already assembling his army. The Witch however still turns the fox to stone and slaps Edmund in the face for hiding information from her. Arriving at Aslan's camp, the group encounters Aslan, who is revealed as a huge and noble lion. Aslan promises to help Edmund in any way he can. Later, two wolves ambush Lucy and Susan while they are frolicking by the river. When Peter intervenes, Maugrim attacks him, and Peter kills him with his sword. After some of Aslan's troops follow the other wolf to the witch's camp and rescue Edmund, Peter is knighted by Aslan.
After Edmund and his siblings reunite, The White Witch journeys to Aslan's camp and asserts her claim to the traitor Edmund, but Aslan secretly offers to sacrifice himself instead. That night, as Lucy and Susan covertly watch, Aslan is killed by the White Witch at the Stone Table with a crowd of creatures watching. In the morning he is resurrected because "there is a magic deeper still the Witch does not know". Aslan takes Susan and Lucy to the Witch's castle, where he frees the prisoners that the White Witch turned to stone, forming reinforcements for Aslan's army.
Edmund persuades Peter to lead Aslan's army to fight the White Witch's forces. Though Aslan's army begins to have a winning streak, the White Witch's huge army is much larger than Aslan's (aka Peter's), so it soon begins losing. To stop the Witch from attacking and killing Peter, Edmund attacks the White Witch and destroys her wand, but is fatally wounded by the Witch in return. Peter, angered at what the Witch did, fights her. As the Witch fights Peter, Aslan arrives with reinforcements and kills her. After Edmund is revived by Lucy's cordial, the Pevensies become Kings and Queens, staying in Narnia until they are adults.
Fifteen years later, while chasing a white stag through the forest, they come to the same forest clearing where the lampost is. Lucy begins to remember, and with Edmund, Susan and Peter following, fights through the trees, where they begin to tumble through the coats and finally out of the wardrobe and return to England, becoming children again. The Professor enters the room and asks what they were doing. Peter replies, "You wouldn't believe us if we told you, sir." The Professor tosses him the ball that broke the window and replies, "Try me". Lucy later attempts to return to Narnia via the wardrobe, but the Professor tells her he has been trying for years, and they will probably return to Narnia when they least expect to return.

Production

Pre-production

During the early 1990s, producers Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy were planning a film version.[12] They could not find a space in Britain to shoot the film during 1996,[13] and their plans to set the film in modern times[14] made Douglas Gresham oppose the film,[15] in addition to his feeling that technology had yet to catch up.[14] Perry Moore began negotiations with the C. S. Lewis Estate in 2000.[16] On December 7, 2001, Walden Media announced that they had acquired the rights to The Chronicles of Narnia.[17]
The success of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone prompted the producers to feel they could make a faithful adaptation of the novel set in Britain. "Harry Potter came along, and all those cultural or geographical lines were broken," Mark Johnson explained. "When The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe was being developed at Paramount, the imperative was to set it in the U.S., and it just doesn't hold. [...] It's not the book."[18] Guillermo del Toro turned down the offer to direct due to his commitment on Pan's Labyrinth.[19] Following his Academy Award win for Shrek, director Andrew Adamson began adapting the source material with a 20 page treatment based on his memories of the book.[5] As such the film begins with the Luftwaffe bombing and concludes with an enormous battle, although they do not take up as much time in the novel.[16]
In the novel, the battle is never seen until Aslan, Susan, Lucy and their reinforcements arrive. This was changed in the movie because Adamson said he could vividly remember a huge battle,[7] an example of how Lewis left a lot to the readers' imagination. Other small changes include the reason all four children come to Narnia, in that an accident breaks a window and forces them to hide. Tumnus also never meets Edmund until the end in the novel. Minor details were added to the Pevensies, such as their mother's name, Helen, being the actual first name of Georgie Henley's mother.[3] Finchley as the home of the Pevensies was inspired by Anna Popplewell, who actually is from Finchley.[20] Adamson also changed the circumstances in which Lucy first comes into Narnia. He felt it was more natural that she first see the wardrobe while looking for a hide-and-seek hiding place, rather than just chance upon it exploring the house.[7] The film also hints at Professor Kirke's role in The Magician's Nephew, such as the engravings on the wardrobe when it is a simple one in the novel and the Professor's surprise and intrigue when Peter and Susan mentions Lucy's discovery in the wardrobe. When Lewis wrote the novel, it was the first of the series and the back-story later outlined by the subsequent books in the series did not exist. In the novel also, the father of the Pevensie children is in London with their mother, but in the film, their father is fighting in the war as Lucy stated to Mr. Tumnus when they first meet in Narnia.
Weta Workshop head Richard Taylor cited Hieronymus Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights as an inspiration on the film. He felt Narnia had to be less dark and gritty than their depiction of Middle-earth in The Lord of the Rings because it is a new world.[21] Many of Weta's creature designs were designed for digital creation, so when Howard Berger and KNB FX inherited the practical effects work, they had to spend three months retooling approved designs for animatronics.[22] Berger's children would comment and advise upon his designs; they suggested the White Witch's hair be changed from black to blonde, which Berger concurred with as he realized Swinton's wig looked too gothic.[23]

Filming

Principal photography began on June 28, 2004,[24] shooting in primarily chronological order.[4] Adamson did this in order to naturally create a sense of mature development from his young actors, which mirrored their real life development.[15] Georgie Henley and Skandar Keynes[6] were never shown the set before filming scenes of their characters entering Narnia, nor had Henley seen James McAvoy in his Mr. Tumnus costume before shooting their scenes together.[3]
The first scene shot was at the disused Hobsonville Air Base for the railway scene.[25] Afterwards, they shot the Blitz scene, which Adamson called their first formal day of shooting.[7]
The filmmakers asked permission to bring in twelve reindeer to New Zealand to pull the Ice Queen's sled. The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry denied, citing the potentially deadly Q fever from which the North American reindeer population suffers as the reason. However, ten wolves and wolf hybrids were allowed in for filming in Auckland.[26] To replace the denied live reindeer Mark Rappaport's Creature Effects, Inc. created four animatronic reindeer that were used in shots where the deer were standing in place. The reindeer were designed with replace-able skins to get the most usage; brown for Father Christmas and white for the White Witch.
The cast and crew spent their time in New Zealand in Auckland before moving in November to the South Island. The castle scene was filmed in Purakaunui Bay, not far from the most southern point in NZ[27]
They filmed in Czech Republic (Prague and National Park České Švýcarsko) and Poland after the Christmas break,[4] before wrapping in February.

Release

On December 7, 2005 the film premiered in London, going on general release the following day. The film was released December 8, 2005 in the United Kingdom and December 9, 2005 in North America and the rest of Europe.

Box office

Worldwide, Narnia earned $745,013,115 marking it the 45th highest-grossing film of all-time worldwide. It had a worldwide opening of $107.1 million, marking Disney's fifth largest opening worldwide (at the time it was the largest).[32] It is the third-largest movie worldwide among those released in 2005[33] and it currently still remains the highest grossing movie of the Narnia franchise worldwide, and separately in North America and overseas.[34] Finally, it the largest film of Walden Media worldwide.[35]
United States and Canada
The film opened with $23,006,856 in 3,616 theatres on its opening day (Friday, December 9, 2005), averaging $6,363 per location. The film took in a total of $65,556,312 on its opening weekend (December 9–11, 2005),[36] the 24th best opening weekend at the time (now 54th). It was also Disney's third largest opening weekend at the time (now the 8th largest)[37] as well as the second biggest December opening, behind The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. It is now fourth following the 2007 opening of I Am Legend and the 2009 release of Avatar as well.[38] Additionally, it made the third largest opening weekend of 2005.[39] It grossed $291,710,957 in total becoming the second highest grossing film of 2005 behind Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.[40] It surpassed the gross of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by only $1.7 million, although the latter grossed $895.9 million worldwide, ahead of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. It is the highest-grossing film of the 2005 holiday period,[41] the second highest grossing Christian film,[42] the 6th largest family - children's book adaptation,[43] the 9th highest-grossing fantasy - live action film[44] and the 10th highest-grossing film overall in Disney company history.[45] Finally, it is the largest film of Walden Media worldwide.





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