Georgie Henley and Aslan, voiced by Liam Neeson
As Narnia tops the box office, selling 105.5 million tickets globally in its opening weekend, Twentieth Century Fox is vindicated in striding in like Aslan to rescue the ailing franchise after Disney decided The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader was a step too far for them after Prince Caspian took $415 million at the box office - considerably less than the Studio had hoped for.
Certainly, the cast members who have been with the franchise from the start - Liam Neeson (Aslan), Georgie Henley (Lucy) and Skandar Keynes (Edmund) - seem grateful for the chance to finish what they started as they talk about the latest instalment in a relaxed press conference.
Neeson says he hoped the franchise would be a success "but not for financial reasons".
He adds: "I love the books. I was introduced to them by my eldest boy, who is now 15. At the time he was nine years of age. He said: 'Dad, what are you doing today?' I said: 'I have to go and meet this guy, Andrew Adams,on for this job. They've offered me this voice for this character called Aslan.' He said: 'Ah, Aslan? The lion? Dad, he's God.' He showed me where his book was and I read it fast and furiously, but it was my son who kind of inspired me to be part of it. So I owe it all to him."
And Henley, now 15, says she was aware that the film might never get made.
"I guess being the youngest of the cast, I was very much kept in the dark about it," she says. "But I did understand that we were in limbo. I think the worst thing about it was that when we were shooting Caspian, we always said: 'See you on Dawn Treader.' We never really said goodbye to the cast and crew finally because we just assumed that we would be meeting again on the next instalment of the series. So it was very sad that we wouldn't get a chance to say a proper goodbye. But they certainly did ride to the rescue and we're very grateful to Fox."
The end result is an adaptation of the third of CS Lewis's classic books about the adventures of the Pevensie children in the magical world of Narnia. In this instalment, the eldest two children have left the picture, as Lucy and Edmund find themselves shipped off to stay with their annoying cousin Eustace. When Narnia calls, the three of them are whisked away to the Dawn Treader ship and find themselves trying to save the magical kingdom from evil as well as battling their own inner demons.
Will Poulter - best known for his breakthrough role in Son Of Rambow - is the new kid on the block as the brattish Eustace, but he says he relished the challenge. "It was fantastic to be part of this," he says. "It was just a real privilege to do it. I was certainly very apprehensive. There was certainly a certain amount of nerves surrounding coming into a project as big as this and a cast that is such a tight-knit group of friends. It was almost like a family, I felt that vibe as soon as I stepped on the set. Everyone was just so welcoming and friendly. It made it such an enjoyable experience but on a professional level it made it so much more fun to do. I had the best six months of my life."
Poulter, in particular, faces the challenges of CGI, both in a swashbuckling fight with muskateer-style mouse Reepicheep and in being transformed midway through the film into a dragon.
"I had no experience with CGI whatsover," says the 17-year-old. "The only thing I'd ever done was a tennis ball thrown five feet and that was the biggest CGI shot of the film. And I was just blown away by that. So you can't even begin to imagine how amazed I was on the set of this film and seeing what the special effects team did because it was so incredible. I mean, I was in a film with Liam Neeson, but he wasn't there. That, for me, is amazing. So there were so many elements that blew my mind."
"It is a challenge, definitely. The fight with Reepicheep, who wasn't there for 90 per cent of it, so it was about trying to maintain an eyeline that was consistent and try to make the movements not too exaggerated because he is such a small animal but still look like I'm struggling because Eustace is so pathetic. But really I can take no credit for that because it is the special effects team who've done such an incredible job."
Neeson, however, is keen to point out just how difficult green screen acting is.
"They're underselling themselves as actors," he insists. "Because CGI is computer generated imagery, and that essentially means you're acting with nothing. You're acting against a blue or green screen with little red dots. They say: 'Ok, here's the ship, here's Aslan, here's this.' And the fact that in the very final scene of the movie, these actors pull this off and it's deeply touching and very emotional, says a lot about their talent. I've done it many times, acting against a tennis ball, especially in Star Wars the prequel, and its frigging difficult to try to convey emotion to a tennis ball."
It seems even the cast feel some sense of relief that the end result looks so good.
Keynes, 19, says: "It was really good to see it last night [at the premiere] to see it pulled off."
The Chronicles Of Narnia: Voyage Of The Dawn Treader is out in cinemas across the UK now.
