PRINCES CLASH IN THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: PRINCE CASPIAN
 

“It’s a wonderfully nostalgic story,” says Narnia director Andrew Adamson. “Basically the children have come back to a place that they’ve longed to be, the place they ruled for 15 years. Everything has changed. Cair Paravel is in ruins . . .

The people they know have been driven into the wild. Aslan hasn’t been seen for a thousand years. They’ve got to come to terms with that, try to restore Narnia as they know it.”

“Peter becomes slightly arrogant,” says William Moseley, the eldest of the four children in the first Narnia and now 21 years old. “When he gets back to Narnia, it’s 1,300 years later and people don't know he's a high king. Peter cannot accept Caspian. His plans are not set from his heart, but from his ego. Even when he doubts himself, he still is too stubborn to back down and accept that he might be wrong.”

“When we cast William as Peter, he was just 15 and had never done anything like this before,” says Adamson. “William’s transformation was not dissimilar to that of his character Peter in the story, from this 17-year-old boy into a young man. I don’t think he’d even been on a movie set before. He was just this really great kid you wanted to be your big brother.”

“Although William is 21, he's playing a 16 or 17-year-old,” says co-star Anna Popplewell. “I had my first audition with him when I was 13. And we really have sort of grown up together. Everyone has grown up a little bit, and changed a little bit.”

“Susan gets to be involved in a bit more action this time,” says Popplewell. “I loved doing the fighting scenes. I loved being in the raid and the battle and getting my teeth into some of the stunts. I didn’t get to do much of that in the first movie.”

“I was a massive Narnia fan as a kid,” says Ben Barnes who plays Prince Caspian. The 26-year-old British stage actor was discovered performing in the West End in ‘The History Boys’ for London's National Theatre Company.

But what about the creatures of Narnia?

“We estimated close to 3,000 make-ups on the film, which would keep the foam department busy almost 24/7 for the next nine months,” says creature supervisor Howard Berger. “We ended up applying 4,600 make-ups by the end of the shoot, which is, I believe, a world record. We were chomping at the bit to go back for the next film and get a chance to revisit all the Narnian inhabitants we helped create for the first film.”

“In Prince Caspian, we had heavy set fauns, old age fauns, female dwarves, African-Narnian centaurs and their families,” says Berger. “The minotaurs are now on the side of good. We have a new hag, a werewolf and the Satyrs are back, but all redesigned to be more animal-like. My favorite Narnians are the dwarves.”

As they did on the first film, Berger’s company KNB created life-sized animatronic puppets and suits for the CGI character of Aslan for use on the set during filming. “Andrew wanted him to be 15 percent larger,” says Berger. “We were able to utilize the digital scanning information from the first film and have Cyber FX mill out a new sculpture 15 percent larger than the first. We ended up with a very large lion in the shop.”

The face of Reepicheep, the swashbuckling mouse, did not come from the brush of one of Berger’s talented artists, but was computer generated by visual effects co-supervisor Wendy Rogers.

“I grew up on the Narnia books and Reepicheep was definitely one of my favorite characters,” says director Adamson. “He was ingrained in my imagination. The trick here was finding the right voice.” The filmmakers auditioned over 100 voices to find the right actor to bring the character to life, says producer Mark Johnson. “Eddie Izzard's voice came closest to the seriousness of the character and yet didn't in any way repel us or not let us have immediate affection for Reepicheep.”

Prince Caspian starts big and gets even bigger. “We’ve seen that epic world now,” says Adamson. “So, at the beginning of this movie, we had to start epic and then get more epic. We had a lot more exterior locations. We had castles and kingdoms created by a new race of men, the Telmarines. So there was this whole new world to design. Also, this film is probably a little darker and grittier than the last one, partly because the children are older, making the story more adult in nature. In the last film, I think we went to some pretty dark places. Aslan’s death, certainly, is one of the darkest moments in the film. I think this movie has the potential to be even more sinister.”

“The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a very emotional story about sacrifice and forgiveness,” says Adamson. “In some ways, this is a more personal story, a story of these kids returning to a place that they love, but that no longer exists. This is more about coming to adulthood, about growth and adventure.”
 

Running Time: 2 hr. 20 min.
Release Date: May 16th, 2008 (USA)
MPAA Rating: PG for epic battle action and violence
Distributor: Buena Vista Pictures