The final cut of Kiwi director Andrew Adamson's epic The Lion The With and The Wardrobe has been revealed to the film's cast and a small group of press in London.
Four unknown child actors line up alongside veteran British actors like Tilda Swinton, Ray Winstone and Dawn French, in Adamson's first live action film.
The story surrounds the Pevensie siblings - Lucy, Edmund, Susan and Peter - who tumble through the back of a wardrobe in war-torn England and into a battle of their own - to save the mystical land of Narnia with the help of a talking Lion called Aslan.
Their arch nemesis is the white witch Jadis, played by Swinton, who keeps Narnia in perpetual winter.
Shot almost exclusively in New Zealand, the filmmakers created more than 20 make-believe species along with the magical winter plagued world of Narnia that was first imagined by author CS Lewis.
Adamson is under similar pressure with his adaptation as Peter Jackson was with his Lord of The Rings trilogy. More than one million copies of the book have been sold worldwide and it has been translated into nearly 30 languages.
Also like Lord of The Rings the Narnia books have a cult following that provide a group of hardened critics.
Adamson says he didn't watch the movie properly when showing it to the critics and cast as he was busy watching the reaction of the movie's child stars.
"I was watching the kids... Skander (Edmund) jumping round biting his nails and Georgie (Lucy) jumping in her mum's lap from time to time...it was really satisfying," says Adamson.
"It was an arduous experience, I won't say it was easy but it was enjoyable."
After his epic journey Adamson says there is only one place he's hoping to find behind his wardrobe door.
"At the moment I think it is a vacation... stepping through the door onto the beach."
The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe opens in New Zealand on December 9.
See the related video for One News' European correspondent Lisa Owen's cast interviews...
