The stepson of the creator of the much-loved Narnia books says C.S. Lewis would be pleased with the new movie. "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe" is due for release in December after being filmed mostly in New Zealand. The movie is directed by New Zealander Andrew Adamson, who also directed the award winning cartoon Shrek. C. S. Lewis's stepson, Douglas Gresham, is acting as co-producer on the movie. He told Radio Rhema's Rob Holding it will be a visual feast. [More]

Sixteen-year-old Anna Popplewell is, in many ways, the perfect choice to play Susan, the older Pevensie sister in Disney’s upcoming film adaptation of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Like the Susan of C. S. Lewis’s beloved Chronicles of Narnia, Anna actually is an older sister, she’s studious, she’s pragmatic and logical—and thus an unlikely candidate to fall for such a far-fetched fairy tale. But like Susan, once she meets Aslan face-to-face, all of that pragmatism and skepticism falls aside, and she embraces the magic. [More]

Richard Taylor, who supervised the designs of armor and weapons for the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the upcoming film adaptation of Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, said that although both stories were adapted from British novels of the same period, the styles of the films have significant differences. "Trying to find the world [of Narnia] was really quite hard," Taylor said in an interview. "It's a different audience. It has to play for a similar audience, but it's the story of four children and it's a very unique story. [Narnia author] C.S. Lewis and [Rings author J.R.R.] Tolkien actually debated it themselves. They were close friends, but they had a fervent debate about how Tolkien liked to write his world and how C.S. Lewis wrote his world. And that was challenging at a technical level." [More]

Post-production work on New Zealand director Andrew Adamson's The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is under way in London. Adult actors including Tilda Swinton, Dawn French, Jim Broadbent, Rupert Everett and all the children have been in and out of an edit suite laying down additional voice tracks on the movie, the Daily Telegraph newspaper reports. The four children are relatively unknown British child actors - Georgie Henley, William Moseley, Anna Popplewell and Skandar Keynes.[ More]

In the grand scheme of theological thrillers, Constantine aspires for the greatness of The Exorcist but ranks more closely with The Order. Based on the popular Hellblazer comic book series, and directed with nary a shred of intelligence by music video veteran Francis Lawrence, it's basically The Matrix with swarming demons instead of swarming machines. [More]

Walt Disney Pictures confirmed on Sunday at the San Diego Comic-Con that Liam Neeson will voice Aslan the Lion. Rumor of this news first popped up on both AICN and Filmforce IGN. [More]

We are about to enter the time of superlatives. Although JK Rowling's publisher is understandably cagey about what we should expect today, when Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is released, we know we are on course once more to experience a record-breaking publishing phenomenon. The book will have an initial print run of more than 10m in the United States - the biggest first printing of any book, ever. [More]

From Narniaweb: Comic-Con is one of the world’s biggest annual comic book, video game, and movie conventions. It is being held at the San Diego Convention Center this week and it’s not surprising that the Chronicles of Narnia have quite a showing. Besides a Narnia booth with full-size statues, convention-goers will have an opportunity to get an exclusive look at the film at Sunday’s presentation (July 17th). Sunday’s panel will include live satellite appearances with director Andrew Adamson and producer Mark Johnson. Appearing live will be Richard Taylor (FX Master), Howard Berger (Makeup FX Supervisor), and Dean Wright (Visual FX Supervisor). The panel discussion begins at 12:30 and should feature exclusive clips from the film. 20 minutes of audience Q & A will follow and then an hour of autograph signing at 1:30. [More]

Aintitcoolnews.com has some great pictures from WETA's booth at Comic-Con, one of the largest Sci-Fi/Fantasy Conventions in the world. Take a look at Mr. Tumnus and the White Witch sculptures! !!!SPOILERS!!! [More]

From Cinescape.com: USA Today reported recently that some booksellers are "getting ready to pull out artificial fir trees, fake snow and Narnia-inspired stuffed animals" for the tie-in sales to the release of THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE this December. HarperCollins will be bringing out no less than 145 Narnia-related books to choose from. Some have been available for years, but an additional 24 movie tie-ins have been added. At bookshop in Naperville, Ill., the front window will display a life-size blowup of Narnia's lion king. And once the new HARRY POTTER book goes on sale, the owner will transform her store window into a winter-like "Narnia world." [More]

The Barrow Dock Museum will undergo a slight change of scenery this summer, when works of art by fantasy art guru Geoff Taylor will be the subject of a major new exhibition at the museum from 12th August -16th October 2005. Fantasy art lovers will need no introduction to Geoff, who illustrated all three books in JRR Tolkein’s the Lord of the Rings trilogy in 1999. The list of Geoff’s published cover illustrations reads like a whose-who of modern literature, he has illustrated book covers for such literary giants as Raymond E Feist, Isaac Asimov, Phillip K Dick, Daniel Defoe and Katherine Kerr, to name but a few. [More]