Where to watch The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005)

Trivia & production notes

• Harry Potter's success convinced producers they could faithfully adapt the novel and set it in Britain, rather than moving the story to the United States as earlier plans had required.
• Director Guillermo del Toro declined to helm the film due to his prior commitment to Pan's Labyrinth.
• Andrew Adamson developed the screenplay based on his own childhood memories of reading the book, expanding scenes like the Luftwaffe bombing and the final battle that he vividly recalled.
• New Zealand's Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry refused to allow twelve reindeer into the country over concerns about Q fever, prompting the creation of four animatronic reindeer instead.
• Director Andrew Adamson shot the film in chronological order so that the young actors' natural development would mirror their characters' emotional growth throughout the story.
• Georgie Henley never saw James McAvoy in his Mr. Tumnus costume before filming their scenes together, and Henley was also not shown the set before shooting scenes of Lucy entering Narnia.
• Weta Workshop designed the animatronic reindeer with replaceable skins so they could use brown coverings for Father Christmas's team and white coverings for the White Witch's team.
• A sequence showing creatures set on fire was removed from the film to secure a PG rating from the Motion Picture Association of America.
• The filmmakers used Hieronymus Bosch's painting The Garden of Earthly Delights as visual inspiration for creating a Narnia that would be less dark and gritty than the depiction of Middle-earth in The Lord of the Rings.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Rewritten for StreamShack; errors are ours — tell us about them.