Narnia film is record breaker

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
10 April 2012

The movie version of The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe has topped the UK box office with takings of £8 million in its opening weekend, figures showed today.

The adaptation of the CS Lewis classic is the biggest UK opening for a Disney film - beating previous record-holder Toy Story 2.

In the US, box office takings of 67.1 million dollars (£37.8 million) made it the second highest December opening of all time behind the final Lord Of The Rings film.

Worldwide, The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe took 108.8 million US dollars (£61.4 million) and went straight to number one in 14 countries.

The 150 million-dollar (£84.6 million) movie features Tilda Swinton as the White Witch and Liam Neeson as the voice of Aslan the lion.

It has also boosted sales of the Narnia books - the tie-in version of The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe sold more than 42,000 copies in the lead-up to the film's release and is the UK's number one children's paperback.

The Chronicles Of Narnia are a Christian allegory, with Aslan representing Christ.

Disney has promoted the film to the religious Right in the US, and in the UK churches have bought tickets in bulk to give out to parishioners.

The world premiere was held last week, with the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall in attendance.

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