'Narnia' sparks book rage, to be podcast on iTunes

'Narnia' sparks book rage, to be podcast on iTunes

LONDON - The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe premiers tonight at the Royal Albert Hall and the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall are due to attend the ''Royal'' premiere.

This movie has been built up as a challenge to Harry Potter ahead of the Christmas season. Harry Potter has been released for three weeks and has grossed about $550 million in worldwide ticket sales. Narnia is the story of the Pevensie children, who stumble upon a wardrobe that transports them to Narnia, the land of the good and the evil. The Walt Disney Co has produced this children's fantasy movie at a cost of £62 million. The movie is based on a book of the same name authored by C S Lewis.

The movie release has prompted a rush to the book stores and HarperCollins, which has the English publication rights across the world, is leaving no stone unturned to make sure that book lovers as well as movie lovers have an access to the books. The company has launched an aggressive advertising campaign and intends to highlight the other six titles in the Narnia series as well.

Claire Harding, the children's business development director at HarperCollins was categorical in saying that the movie represented a huge opportunity for the book, "We have global rights for Narnia which is very unusual, and we've maximized it to the full. This has really opened the door to make this a massive worldwide franchise."

In Britain the company, which is a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp plans to release 17 "film tie-in editions" of the books. Another dozen tie-ins are penciled in other countries. HarperCollins is already working on the tie-ins for the next Narnia film that is slated to be released sometime in 2008. The company has kicked off a “read-it-before-you-see-it" agenda and this has increased the sales of the Narnia book by at least five times.

Disney has said that the Narnia film will be podcast on iTunes for free and will also appear on other podcasting sites.