Film
Skeptical that any cinematic adaptation could render the more fantastical elements and characters of the story realistically, Lewis never sold the film rights to the Narnia series. In answering a letter with a question posed by a child in 1957, asking if the Narnia series could please be on television, C. S. Lewis wrote back: "They'd be no good on TV. Humanized beasts can't be presented to the eye without at once becoming either hideous or ridiculous. I wish the idiots who run the film world realize that there are stories are for the ear alone." Only after seeing a demo reel of CGI animals did Douglas Gresham, Lewis's stepson and literary executor, and the films' co-producer, give approval for a film adaptation.
The first novel adapted was The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe as The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe released in December 2005. Produced by Walden Media and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures, the film was directed by Andrew Adamson, with a screenplay by Ann Peacock, Stephen McFeely and Christopher Markus. The movie was a critical and box-office success, grossing over $745 million worldwide and as of March 2011 ranked 38th on the list of highest-grossing films in nominal terms. Disney and Walden Media then co-produced a sequel The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, released in May 2008, which grossed over $419 million worldwide.
In December 2008 Disney pulled out of financing the remainder of the Chronicles of Narnia film series. Already in pre-production at the time, 20th Century Fox and Walden Media eventually co-produced The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which was released in December 2010 going on to gross over $415 million worldwide.
Read more about this topic: Narnia, Adaptations of The Chronicles of Narnia
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