(EDITOR'S NOTE: Below is Part 1 from our on-going coverage of Walt Disney Pictures' "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe" due out December 2005. We recently sent Jenny Halper to New Zealand for an insider's report. Be sure to keep checking back to Cinema Confidential for more from Jenny, as well as other features and exclusive looks...)

Part 1: By Jenny Halper from New Zealand

“It’s about a children’s world,” Tilda Swinton said. “I think the real question, and I speak as the mother of two six-year-olds, the real question is ‘What do the parents want to read?’ And it’s lovely to read the Narnia books to children.”

She was referring, specifically, to CS Lewis’ “The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe,” the basis for Andrew Adamson’s film adaptation that’s currently filming in New Zealand. As Jadis, the White Witch, Swinton is portraying one of the most terrifying characters in children’s literature. Standing in an Auckland-based production office, the casually dressed, make-up free Swinton looked more like a laid-back mom than an evil witch prone to turning adversaries into stone.

Appearances, as the set of “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” proved, can be deceptive. What appeared to be a run-down warehouse was actually a reconstructed forest; what looked like the exterior of a high school gym housed a stunning courtyard filled with “stone” sculptures. During five exciting days on “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,” set, I had the opportunity to speak with production team members while visiting various sound stages and production rooms.

Along with other online writers, I watched live wolves film a scene on a wintry sound stage and attended Armageddon, a “home-grown pop culture (special effects) convention” in Wellington. The online press also visited Wellington’s Oscar-winning (for “Lord of the Rings”) WETA workshop, and toured their studios with director and co-founder Richard Taylor. Under Taylor’s direction, the WETA staff was working hard, creating detailed armor and swords with insignia drawn from all seven Narnia books.

Though extensive interviews and in-depth information from my trip to the set of “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” will be continually posted as the film’s December 2005 release date draws closer, I will say this: speaking with Swinton my first day on the set, I got the sense that “Narnia”’s production team was more than just devoted to their film- they were thrilled to be making it. And that seemed like a rarity.

Director Andrew Adamson, known for his involvement with the “Shrek” movies, is making his live action motion picture directorial debut with “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.” With the help of a seasoned special effects team (interviews to follow…), Adamson is creating a film of near-mythic proportions, filling Narnia with twenty-three individual species including centaurs, wolves, fauns, and a 99.5% CGI Lion. Basing the film on his boyhood Narnia impressions, Adamson’s vivid memories of an extensive battle scene (which Lewis describes briefly) have been incorporated into a lengthy, spectacular battle sequence.

“The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,” which Adamson co-scripted with Anne Peacock, Christopher Markus, and Stephen McFeely, also focuses on Lewis’ World War Two setting- an all-important aspect rejected by most adaptations. After a lengthy opening depicting the London blitz, the four Pevensie children (played by Georgie Henley, Skandar Keyes, Anna Popplewell, and William Mosely) travel to Professor Diggory (Jim Broadbent)’s country estate. There, they enter a charmed wardrobe built, in “The Magician’s Nephew,” by a much younger Diggory from the wood of a Narnian apple tree. The unsuspecting children are then transported into Narnia, where they meet Mr. Tumnus, a faun (James McAvoy), a fox (Rupert Everett), Aslan, a lion (not yet cast), and the terrifying White Witch (Swinton), who is eager to rid Narnia of the “Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve” she fears will usurp her throne.

Having missed the Narnia books as a child- which Swinton jokingly attributed to a “pagan upbringing”- the British actress and star of films including “The Deep End” and “Adaptation” is discovering Narnia as an adult, via Adamson’s unique vision. “It’s not like ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘Lord of the Rings’ now, which are pushed down everybody’s throats.” Swinton concluded. “In those days people kind of discovered it. Let’s hope children will still be able to discover it.”

Given the scope of Adamson’s Narnia- and the beloved place “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” has in the hearts of readers young and old- I’m betting that this version of Narnia will be discovered by a whole new generation.

TO BE CONTINUED