More Biola Tidbits

Joelle from TheLonelyIsle.Net was able to attend the Biola conference and has posted her fabulous review at her blog. Below are the new points that weren’t covered in previous reviews.

• The trailer they showed us today was completed at 6:30 last night, which means that we were the first audience to ever see it!

• The guys who basically got this project off the ground were a group of guys who all graduated either from BIOLA or Masters College.

• When one of the Disney guys called Douglas Gresham and asked if Disney could make CoN, Mr. Gresham said, “Disney is the last place that Jack wanted to make Narnia into a movie.” They are, I quote, “contractly obligated” to make it accurate. And I quote again, “We cannot sneeze without Doug Gresham’s permission.”

• 350 actors auditioned for the voice of Aslan. When Gerard Butler came in to audtion for Aslan he asked, “this is going to be like the BBC puppet Aslan, right? Because if so I’m leaving right now.”

• There are 1000 special effects shots

• It will be dubbed in 23 languages

There was also some footage shown in addition to the trailer:

• The Professor: He’ll take getting used to, he kinda looks like a leprechaun.

• Mr. Tumnus(!): I wish I had a picture of him right now to show you guys, not how I pictured him, but better. He looks so *real*, not like a guy in a costume.

• Mr. (or) Mrs. Beaver: I had to take a double take here, I thought this was a clip of a nature video or something. Wow has technology come a far way, they look exactly like real beavers!! It’s amazing! If it had not been in this context I would have sworn they were real until they started moving, then it was obvious these aren’t your everyday beavers.

• Dwarves: They look exactly like dwarves. But not like Middle Earth dwarves. You couldn’t get the two mixed up.

• Santa Claus: Ok, I kinda thought it would be a given that this part of the story (when ol saint nick comes by and gives everyone Christmas presents) would be the Tom Bombadil of Narnia, but no, there was quite clearly a fat guy, with a beard, and a bag of stuff and a sleigh!!

Thanks to Joelle for this great review and to NarniaFans for finding it.