'Narnia' blitz kicks off in NY bookstore

[teknofriend]

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Actress Tilda Swinton may be one of the stars of "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," but she says she never read the world-famous C.S. Lewis books from which the film is adapted.

Swinton and the four child actors who play the Pevensie children in the big-screen version of the tale showed up at a Manhattan book store to promote the upcoming film and release of new repackaged sets of the "Narnia" volumes from HarperCollins.

"I think I am the only person in the world who hadn't read it," Swinton told a group of children at the event late on Thursday. The Walt Disney Co. movie is set to open on December 9.

Executive producer Perry Moore told youngsters and parents gathered at the store that during casting, then 7-year-old Georgie Henley, who plays Lucy, announced, "I read it a very long time ago, when I was 6."

"The Chronicles of Narnia" began with the publication of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" in 1950. Since then, the seven books featuring talking animals and epic battles between good and evil have sold more than 95 million copies worldwide. HarperCollins expects the release of the movie will boost sales of the fantasy classic to five times normal levels.

Disney is counting on the film to lure mainstream audiences while holding a special appeal to evangelical Christians, who the studio expects will respond to Lewis's biblical allegories.

But when the issue of religion surfaced at Thursday's promotional event, Swinton played it safe. Asked by one child if her character Jadis, the White Witch, represented Satan, the actress answered: "You can read it however you want, and it can grow in your mind. So, I can be whatever you want me to be."

[nuttylove]

This is one movie I'm looking foreward to the most this season but I will only be watching it because I like fantasy movies, not because I'm a religious fanatic.