Adamson was midway through shooting a scene adapted from C.S. Lewis’ classic children’s book, in which the children trek through the snow-covered fantasy world of Narnia and stumble upon a beavers’ cave. The action took place in a huge warehouse, thick with real pine trees and snow made from a fine paper product. The steam from the children’s breath will be added later using computer technology, as will about 50 per cent of the film.
Eighty-five people worked in Los Angeles for eight months before bringing the project to New Zealand, where Weta, the production team behind LOTR, worked on the project. “It’s bigger than The Lord of the Rings,” said special effects designer Howard Berger. “LOTR had orcs and trolls; this has 23 species.”
Production designer Roger Ford said “The hardest part for me is to not only satisfy the child but to exceed their expectations,” he said. “C.S Lewis leaves it to the child’s imagination a lot of the time, which is why it is so successful.”
Adamson said if the first film did well, he would consider writing the screen adaptations for the other books in the seven-part series. C.S. Lewis was good friends with J.R.R. Tolkien, just as Adamson is good friends with Jackson.
“I’ve talked to Peter many times. He’s got his hands full as well at the moment. I think we probably have completely different processes. I don’t really want to be shooting for 3 1/2 years. But there’s obviously some similarities in scale. On another level I think this is a very different film, and it deals with four individuals and it isn’t such an expansive story.”
